^s  OF  ^^ficero^ 


BR  784  .D64  1894 
Dowden,  John,  1840-1910 
The  Celtic  church  in 
Scotland 


'■^st  •.  iA?E?^w 


FROM    Till-.       BOOK    OK    UKER. 


THE   CELTIC  CHURCH 
IN    SCOTLAND; 

BEING  AN    INTRODUCTION   TO   TH?:   HISTORY  OF  THE 

CHRISTIAN    CHURCH    IN   SCOTLAND   DOWN   TO 

THE    DEATH   OF   SAINT    MARGARET. 


^^  '•-> 

;       OCT    5  1916 

JOHN   DOWDEN, 

D.D., ■— ^ 

BISHOP   OF   EDINBURGH. 


PUBLISHED   UNDER   THE   DIRECTION   OF  THE   TR.^CT  COMMITTEE. 


LONDON : 
SOCIETY   FOR    PROMOTING   CHRISTIAN    KNOWLEDGE, 

NORTHUMBERLAND   AVENUE,    CHARING  CROSS,    W.C.  ; 

43,  QUEEN    VICTORIA   STREET,  E.C. 

BRIGHTON:    135,  north  street. 

New  York:    E.   &  J.    B.  YOUNG  &   CO. 

1894. 


Richard  Clay  &  Soxs,  Limited, 
London  &  Hi'ngay. 


PREFACE. 

The  following  pages,  some  of  which  were  read 
in  a  series  of  Lectures  delivered  in  the  Chapter 
House  of  St.  Mary's  Cathedral,  Edinburgh,  are 
intended  chiefly  for  those  who,  while  possessing 
such  general  information  in  regard  to  the  history 
of  Scotland  as  may  be  reasonably  looked  for  in 
persons  of  education,  have  not  made  any  special 
acquaintance  with  the  early  history  of  the  Church 
in  this  country.  I  have  also,  however,  had  in  view 
the  interests  of  Theological  Students,  and  those  of 
the  Clergy  and  others,  who  may  be  induced  to 
investigate  the  subject  more  minutely  for  them- 
selves ;  and  I  have  accordingly  treated  with  some 
fullness  the  original  sources  of  our  knowledge  in 
respect  to  the  Celtic  Church  in  Scotland,  and  have 
attempted  to  estimate  their  value. 

For  the  sake  of  both  classes  of  readers,  I  have 
in  many  places  thought  it  an  advantage  to  allow 
the  original  records  to  tell  their  own  story.  A  modern 
rehandling  of  the  contents  of  the  ancient  documents  is, 
no  doubt,  to  a  very  large  extent  inevitable,  but  it 
is   not  unattended    with    loss;    and  as  far  as  it   is 


VI  PREFACE. 

feasible  there  is  a  real  gain  in  coming,  so  far  as  may 
be,  into  direct  contact  with  our  historical  sources. 

The  true  character  of  the  episcopate  in  the-  Celtic 
Church,  having  been  long  the  subject  of  an  animated 
controversy,  not  yet  wholly  extinct,  has  been  dealt 
with  at  a  greater  length  in  Chapter  XIV.  than  could 
otherwise  be  reasonably  claimed  for  it. 

It  is  hoped  that  the  chapter  on  the  archaeology 
of  the  Celtic  Church  may  serve  to  interest  some 
who  may  be  impatient  of  the  treatment  of  merely 
documentary  evidence. 

The  fact  that  the  early  chapters  were  delivered 
as  Lectures  may  be  offered  as  some  excuse  for  the 
somewhat  colloquial  style  in  which  they  are  cast. 

I  have  to  express  my  thanks  to  Rev.  H.  J.  Lawlor, 
B.D.,  Senior  Chaplain  of  Edinburgh  Cathedral,  for  the 
care  he  has  bestowed  upon  the  revision  of  the  proofs, 
and  for  many  valuable  suggestions ;  but  it  would  be 
unfair  to  him  to  hold  him  in  any  degree  responsible 
for  the  statements  of  fact  and  opinion  in  the  following 
pages.  My  thanks  are  also  due  to  the  Rev.  Edmund 
McClure  for  the  valuable  Appendix  IV.  on  the  epigraph 
of  one  of  the  Kirkmadrine  stones. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER    I. 

The  Roman  Possession  of  Scotland — The  Christian 
Monumental  Sculptures  at  Kirkmadrine,  Wigtonshire 
— The  Native  Peoples — Their  Religion — The  Labours 
of  St.  Ninian  p.  \i 

CHAPTER   H. 
St.  Patrick  a  Child  of  the  British  Church  in  Scotland 

P-  33 
CHAPTER    HI. 

St.  Palladius,  and  his  Disciples,  St.  Ternan  and  St.  Serf 
— The  Origin  of  the  Myth  of  a  non-Episcopal  Church 
in  Ancient  Scotland A  4° 

CHAPTER   IV. 
St.  Mungo  (or  Kentigern)  A  49 

CHAPTER   V. 
The  Historical  Character  of  the  Documentary  Authorities 
for  the  Lives  of  St.  Ninian  and  St.  Mungo  p.  59 

CHAPTER   VL 
St.  Columba  p.'^o 

CHAPTER   VH. 
lona  :    its    Physical    Features — The    Constitution  of  the 
Columban  "  Family  "—Life  in    the    Brotherhood  at 
lona       p.  122 

CHAPTER   VHL 

The  Historical  Character  of  Adamnan's  Life  of  St. 
Coliunba :  The  Miraculous  Element  ...      p.  135 


Vlll  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER   IX. 

St.  Adamnan — lona  in  the  Eighth  and  Ninth  Centuries 

p.  144 

CHAPTER   X. 

Influence  of  lona  in  the  South  :  St.  Cuthbert  in  Lo- 
thian            p.  157 

CHAPTER    XI, 

The  End  of  the  Cokimban  Episcopate  in  Northumbria — 
The  Diocese  of  Lindisfarne  north  of  the  Tweed — 
Melrose — Coldingham — Abercorn — The  See  of  Can- 
dida Casa  as  an  English  Foundation       ...        P-  ^77 

CHAPTER   XII. 

The  Church  in  Scotland  in  the  Ninth,  Tenth,  and 
Eleventh  Centuries— The  Culdees  ...        A  193 

CHAPTER  XIII. 

The  Faith  and  Ritual  of  the  Celtic  Church— The  Tonsure 
and  Easter  Computation     ...         ...         ...        p.  208 

CHAPTER   XIV. 
The  Episcopate  in  the  Celtic  Church ^.250 

CHAPTER   XV. 

St.  Margaret  of  Scotland  p.  267 

CHAPTER  XVI. 

The  Architology  of  the  Celtic  Church  in  Scotland  in  its 
Historical  Relations  p.  292 


APPENDICES. 

1.  The  A/^its  of  St.  Columba 

11.  The  Legend  of  St.  Regulus 

HI.  St.  Margaret's  Gospel  Book 

IV.  The  Kirkmadrine  Epigraph 

Index  ... 


A  321 
329 
331 
333 

335 


LIST    OF    ILLUSTRATIONS. 


1.  Representation   of  St.  Luke  from  the  Book  of  Deer. 

The  square  ornament  on  the  breast  of  the  figure  has 
been  supposed  to  represent  a  case,  containing  the 
Gospel,  suspended  from  the  neck      ...      Frontispiece 

2.  Sculptured  Stone  at  Kirkmadrine,  Wigtonshire      p.  17 

3.  Remains  of  the  ancient  Celtic  Church  on  Eilean-na- 

Naoimh,  from  a  photograph  in  the  possession  of  Dr. 
J.  Anderson,  Keeper  of  the  National  Museum  of  the 
Antiquaries  of  Scotland  A  1^3 

4.  Double  Bee-hive  Cell  on  Eilean-na-Naoimh,  from  a 

photograph   in  the   possession   of  Dr.    J.  Anderson 

P'  293 

5.  {a)  The  Bell  of  St.  Ninian  (hammered  iron),     ib)  The 

Bell  of  St.  Fillan  (cast  bronze)  p.  309 

6.  The  "  Bachul  More."     The  metal  covering  has  almost 

disappeared,  many  rivets  are  still  visible     ...     ^  313 


THE  EARLY  ECCLESIASTICAL  HISTORY  OF    SCOTLAND. 


Stanford^  Geog.'^iEstdh^ 


THE 

CELTIC  CHURCH  IN  SCOTLAND. 

CHAPTER   I. 

THE  ROMAN  POSSESSION  OF  SCOTLAND — THE  CHRIS- 
TIAN MONUMENTAL  SCULPTURES  AT  KIRKMADRINE, 
WIGTONSHIRE — THE    LABOURS    OF    ST.    NINIAN. 

With  a  view  to  our  understanding  aright  the  early 
history  of  Christianity  in  Scotland,  it  is  well  to  recall 
to  mind  that  the  present  boundary  line  between  Scot- 
land and  England  had  no  existence  in  the  days  of  the 
Roman  occupation  of  Britain,  nor  indeed  for  many 
centuries  after  the  last  of  the  Roman  legions  had 
quitted  the  country  for  ever.  The  whole  island  as  far 
as  the  line  between  the  Firths  of  Forth  and  Clyde  was 
known  as  Britain  :  north  of  that  line  was  the  region 
known  as  Caledonia,  or  Alban. 

The  Roman  conquest  of  the  island,  so  fruitful  in 
the  beneficent  results  of  civilization,  was  not  per- 
manently effective  in  the  most  northern  part.  In 
Edinburgh  we  are  close  by  the  furthest  outposts  of 
the  Empire.     The  line  of  forts  originally  constructed 


12  THE    CELTIC  CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

by  Agricola,  and  strengthened  in  the  reign  of  An- 
toninus Pius,  some  fifty  years  later,  by  the  great 
rampart  stretching  from  Borrowstowness  on  the  Forth 
to  Kilpatrick  on  the  Clyde,  marked  for  a  time  the 
practical  limits  of  the  Roman  occupation.  Occasional 
military  demonstrations,  partial  and  temporary  con- 
quests, marchings,  counter-marchings,  the  construction 
of  roads,  and  encampments  of  troops  in  the  regions 
north  of  the  wall  might  overawe,  but  could  not  civi- 
lize, the  barbarian  tribes.  In  Scotland,  north  of  the 
wall,  there  are  to  be  found  only  some  few  scanty 
indications  of  the  existence  of  Roman  civiHzation. 

The  rampart  of  Antonine  was  not  continuously, 
or  for  any  very  lengthened  period,  maintained  as  a 
complete  barrier  against  the  barbarian  warriors  of  the 
north.  The  northern  boundary  of  the  Roman  occu- 
pation shifted  backwards  and  forwards.  We  have  no 
reason  to  suppose  that  the  part  of  Scotland  south  of 
the  line  that  joins  the  Firths  of  Forth  and  Clyde  was 
for  any  great  length  of  time  continuously  subjected 
to  Roman  control  and  the  beneficent  influence  of 
Roman  civilization.  For  long  stretches  of  time  the 
northern  boundary  was  drawn  back  from  the  wall  of 
Antonine  to  the  defences  of  the  far  greater  work — 
far  greater  in  every  sense — the  wall  of  Hadrian, 
extending  between  Tynemouth  and  tlie  Sol  way,  whose 
massive  remains  still  fill  the  visitor  with  wonder,  and 
convey  to  him  a  sense  not  otherwise  to  be  gained  in 
this  country  of  the  vast  resources  and  vast  power  of 
the  Roman  Fmpire.  It  is  south  of  this  southern  wall 
we  must  look  for  such   remains  of  civilized  life  as 


THE    ROMAN    POSSESSION    OF    SCOTLAND.  13 

need   for    their   growth   a    long-sustained    feeling    of 
security. 

It  was  not  till  approaching  the  time  of  the  final 
withdrawal  of  the  Roman  troops  from  Britain  that  by 
a  great  effort  of  an  able  commander  the  debatable 
land  between  the  two  walls — the  scene  of  many  con- 
tests between  the  barbarians  and  the  soldiers  of  the 
Empire — was  again  subdued,  and  formed  (a.d.  368) 
into  the  fifth  Province  of  Roman  Britain,  Valentia 
by  name.  Unhappily,  at  longest,  only  some  forty 
years  were  now  to  pass  before  the  urgent  necessities 
of  the  Empire  nearer  her  centre  and  capital  de- 
manded, for  her  own  protection,  the  recall  of  the 
Roman  troops  from  Britain.  In  that  interval  there 
was  little  time  for  doing  anything  considerable  toward 
the  civilizing  or  Christianizing  of  the  half-subjugated 
and  ever-turbulent  British  tribes  between  the  walls. 
South  of  the  southern  wall,  the  wall  of  Hadrian, 
when  subsequently  the  Saxons  and  Angles  ravaged 
the  land,  it  was  the  invasion  of  a  Christian  country 
by  a  heathen  foe.  During  the  Roman  occupation, 
Roman  Britain,  speaking  generally,  had  been  Chris- 
tianized. But,  in  default  of  positive  evidence,  it 
would  be  hazardous  to  venture  on  any  large  infer- 
ences from  this  fact  as  to  the  spread  of  Christianity, 
even  in  that  part  of  Scotland  where  Roman  influence 
was  most  felt.  It  is,  however,  surely  not  unreason- 
able to  conjecture  that  the  Roman  Christians  in  the 
northern  settlements,  when  opportunities  offered  from 
time  to  time,  would  not  have  been  so  entirely  de- 
ficient in  missionary  zeal  as  to  make  no  effort  to  win 


14  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

to  Christ  the  natives  with  whom  they  were  brought  in 
contact. 

The  researches  of  archaeologists  have  not  dis- 
covered any  Roman  remains  in  Scotland  that  can  with 
absolute  confidence  be  assigned  to  the  Christianity  of 
the  Roman  occupation ;  but  there  exist  some  two  or 
three  that  may  possibly  belong  to  that  early  period. 
The  most  ancient  Christian  memorials  in  Scotland 
(indeed  perhaps  we  may  say  in  Great  Britain)  ^  are 
certain  monumental  stones  in  Wigtonshire.  Their 
characteristics  are  such  as  place  it  beyond  question 
that,  if  they  do  not  actually  belong  to  the  period  of 
the  Roman  occupation,  they  can  be  removed  from  it 
only  by  a  short  interval,  and  really  represent  Romano- 
British  Christianity.  The  forms  of  the  incised  letters 
of  the  inscriptions,  and  the  peculiar  symbol  that  com- 
bines the  sacred  monogram  with  the  penal  cross, 
which  is  well  known  to  students  of  Christian  archae- 
ology, and  is  supposed  to  have  been  introduced  about 
the   time   of  Constantine,-  are    most   certainly  of  a 


1  "Nowhere  in  Great  Britain  is  there  a  Christian  record  so 
ancient  as  the  grey,  weather-beaten  cohnnn  that  now  serves  as 
the  gatepost  of  the  deserted  churchyard  of  Kirk  Madrine  .... 
Long  may  it  stand  as  the  first  authentic  trace  of  Christian 
civilization  in  these  islands," — Dean  vStanley's  Lectures  on  the 
History  of  the  Church  of  Scotland,  p.  85.  Uncertainty  still 
attaches  to  the  ecclesiastical  character  of  the  so-called  "  Church  " 
at  the  Roman  town  of  Silchester.  The  Kirkmadrine  stones 
have,  since  Dean  Stanley  wrote,  been  placed  under  shelter  from 
the  weather. 

-  See  Mr.  R.  St.  John  Tyrwhitt's  article  "Monogram"  in  Smith 
and  Cheetham's  Dictionary  of  Christian  Antiquities.  Mr.  Tyr- 
whitt  notices  that  this  -P  is  the  only  form  of  monogram  found  in 
the  Vatican  and  Sinaitic  MSS.  of  the  Bible. 


MONUMENTAL    SCULPTURES    AT    KIRKMADRINE.       1 5 

totally  different  type  from  the  familiar  Celtic  crosses 
and  Celtic  inscriptions  so  numerous  in  Ireland  and 
the  highlands  of  Scotland  where  Irish  influence  after- 
wards prevailed.  Indeed,  the  sacred  monogram  is  said 
not  to  occur  even  once  among  the  many  hundred 
early  Christian  monuments  in  which  Ireland  is  so  rich.^ 
On  the  monuments  at  Kirkmadrine  in  Wigtonshire, 
to  which  I  refer,  the  monogram  is  surrounded  by  a 
circle,  which,  though  it  may  have  been  merely  decor- 
ative, more  probably  possessed  a  symbolical  signifi- 
cance. The  circle  was  taken  in  early  Christian  times 
to  suggest  the  idea  of  Eternity  as  being  without 
beginning  and  without  end ;  and  in  this  connection  it 
is  very  interesting  to  observe  that  the  Kirkmadrine 
stones  bear  also  the  familiar  symbols  A  and  w, 
expressing,  in  a  different  way,  a  similar  thought.  A 
monumental  inscription  at  Milan,  in  which  a  circle 
similarly  surrounds  the  sacred  monogram,  expresses 
in  a  Latin  couplet  the  thought  suggested  by  this 
combination.  I  may  sufficiently  render  the  verses  by 
the  two  lines — 

"Endless,  beginningless,  this  mystic  ring 
Circles  the  names  of  the  Most  Highest  King."  ^ 

Such  was  the  faith  of  the  Christian  Church  in 
Scotland  as  declared  in  its  earliest  Christian  monu- 
ments : — Christ— Christ  crucified — was  the  first  and 

^  Anderson's    Scotland  iv   Early  Christian    Times,    second 
series,  p.  253. 

-  Circulus  hie  summi  comprendit  nomina  regis 
Quern  sine  principio,  et  sine  fine  vides. 

Cited  by  Anderson,  nt  stipra. 


t6  the    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

the  last,  the  Alpha  and  the  Omega,  the  beginning  and 
the  end. 

But  there  is  another  fact  borne  testimony  to  by 
these,  the  oldest  Christian  monuments  of  Scotland. 
The  inscription  on  one  of  them  shows  it  to  be  a 
monument  marking  the  graves  of  two  priests.  "  Here 
lie,"  so  runs  the  epigraph,  "  holy  and  eminent  priests, 
namely,  Viventius  and  Mavorius.''^ 

HICIACENT 

SCIETPRAE 

CIPVISACER 

DOTESIDES[T] 

VIVENTIVS 

ETMAVORTVS 

"  Sacerdotes  "  is  the  term  used,  a  word  that  came 
early  into  use,  and  was  sometimes  employed  with 
reference  to  both  of  the  highest  orders  of  the  ministry 
— those  of  Bishops  and  Presbyters.- 

These  sculptured  stones  of  Kirkmadrine  carry  us 
back,  without  doubt,  far  beyond  the  days  of  St. 
Columba  and  the  Irish  mission,  up  even  to  the  days 
of  the  Roman,  or  Romano-British,  Church.  Perhaps 
we  shall  not  be  astray  if  we  attribute  these  monuments 
to  the  Church  of  St.  Ninian,  and  to  a  date  before  the 

^  The  inscription  is  thus  given  in  Stuart's  Sciclptured  Stones  of 
Scotland. 

-  It  was  found  necessary,  when  it  was  sought  to  be  precise,  to 
use,  when  referring  to  Presbyters,  such  forms  as  sectmdi  sacerdotes, 
or  sectmdi  ordinis  sacerdotes  (St.  Leo),  or  minoris  ordinis  sacej'- 
dotes  (vSt.  Gregory  the  Great).  Hence  the  priccipui  sacerdotes  of 
the  inscription  may  conceivably  have  been  bishops.  Summtis 
sacerdos,  as  is  well  known,  was  used  in  that  sense.  Id  est  is  so 
unusual  in  epigraphs  of  this  kind  that  1  am  tempted  to  conjecture 
that  IDES  is  the  whole  or  part  of  a  proper  name.   See  App.  IV. 


;Hk:iace/"n^ 

S>CjETPi?AE' 

tooTESibe 

fvp/t-mv ' 


... ' ■•  .1^ H%4-^i\p}'4li^^^>m^  -^^^  * 


l8  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

departure  of  the  Roman  legions  from  the  island. 
These  stones,  and  another  ancient  cross  at  Whithorn, 
possessing  some  of  the  same  characteristic  features, 
belong  to  the  region  Christianized  or  presided  over  by 
the  first  Bishop  whose  name  has  a  place  in  the 
authentic  history  of  Scotland.  They  belong  to  the 
region  where  St.  Ninian,  himself  a  child  of  the 
Romano-British  Church,  laboured  a  century  and  a  half 
before  Columba  landed  on  lona. 

Before  dealing  with  the  history  of  St.  Ninian,  it  is 
desirable  to  say  something  of  the  native  population  of 
Scotland  at  the  time  of  his  missionary  labours.  It  is 
now  very  generally  admitted  that  the  whole  native 
population  of  the  island  was  made  up  of  various 
nations  or  tribes,  differing  from  one  another,  and  it 
might  be  differing  very  widely,  in  dialect,  but  all  of 
the  one  great  Celtic  stock.  The  subject  of  the  origin, 
the  race,  and  the  language  of  the  Picts  presented  in 
former  days  a  wider  battle-ground  for  the  speculations 
of  antiquarians  than  it  does  at  present.  If  it  be  true 
that  controversy  upon  the  subject  is  not  absolutely  at 
rest,  it  is  certain  that  it  would  be  no  longer  possible 
to  balance  the  names  of  eminent  authorities  agninst 
one  another  on  this  side  and  on  that,  as  was  done  upon 
a  memorable  evening,  vivid  I  am  sure  in  the  minds  of 
many  of  my  readers,  when  the  tempers  of  Sir  Arthur 
Wardour  and  worthy  Mr.  Jonathan  Oldbuck  were  so 
severely  tried  over  the  great  Pictish  question  at  the 
dinner-table  at  Monkbarns.^     There  is  at  the  present 

1  In  The  Antiquary  of  Sir  Waller  Scott. 


NORTHERN    AND    SOUTHERN    PICTS.  1 9 

day  a  substantial  consensus  among  the  most  dis- 
tinguished specialists  that  the  Picts  were  a  Celtic 
people,  and  the  prevailing  belief  seems  to  be  that  the 
heathen  and  barbarous  Pictish  tribes  north  of  the  wall 
of  Antonine  were  of  essentially  the  same  race  as  the 
Britons,  who,  south  of  the  wall,  had  received  some 
tincture  of  the  civilization  and  of  the  new  faith  of 
their   Roman  conquerors.^ 

The  Picts,  or  tribes  north  of  the  Firths  of  Forth  and 
Clyde,  were  divided  into  two  great  clans  or  kingdoms, 
distinguished  as  the  Northern  and  Southern  Picts,  and 
separated  from  one  another  by  the  great  mountain 
range  that  crosses  Scotland  from  the  south-west  to  the 
north-east,  and  terminates  in  the  Grampians.  The 
Northern  Picts  may  be  regarded  as  occupying  the 
country  corresponding  to  the  modern  counties  of 
Caithness,  Sutherland,  Ross,  Inverness,  Nairn,  Elgin, 
Banff,  and  Aberdeen;  while  Kincardine,  Forfar,  Perth, 
Fife,  and  the  other  counties  north  of  the  Forth, 
were  in  the  possession  of  the  Southern  Picts.  But 
beside  these  two  larger  sections  of  the  Picts,  at  the 
time  of  St.  Ninian  there  may  have  already  existed  a 
smaller  settlement  of  this  people  in  the  out-of-the-way 
corner  of  Galloway,  corresponding  to  the  present 
county  of  Wigton  and  part  of  Kirkcudbright.  They 
certainly  occupied  this  region  at  a  later  date.  If  any 
of  the  Scots  from  Ireland  had  at  this  early  period 
possessed  themselves  of  any  part  of  this  country,  their 
occupancy   was    confined    for   the   most   part   to  the 

1  It  is  more  open   to  question  whether  the   Picts  belonged 
to  the  Cymric  or  the  Gaelic  branch  of  the  race. 


20  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

islands  and  highlands  of  the  western  coast,  where,  at  a 
later  time,  we  find  them  in  large  numbers. 

This  may  not  be  an  unsuitable  place  for  stating  the 
fact,  and  emphasizing  it,  that  the  names  Scots  and 
Scotia  were  in  very  early  times  used  exclusively  of  the 
Irish  and  of  Ireland.  Indeed,  for  six  or  seven 
centuries  after  the  time  of  Ninian,  by  the  word  Scots  was 
meant  the  Irish  of  Ireland,  or  the  Irish  settlers  on  the 
west  coast  of  what  is  now  called  Scotland.  "  It  is 
not  safe,"  writes  Dr.  Hill  Burton,  "to  count  that  the 
word  Scot  must  mean  a  native  of  present  Scotland, 
when  the  period  dealt  with  is  earlier  than  the  middle 
of  the  twelfth  century."  ^  This  fact,  now  universally 
acknowledged,  passed  out  of  sight  after  the  name  Scotia 
or  Scotland  had  been  transferred  to  the  country  that 
is  now  so  called ;  and  much  confusion  of  thought  was 
thereby  caused  to  several  of  the  earlier  historians  of 
Scotland,  whose  ignorance  of  this  truth  made  their 
interpretation  of  the  early  documents  extremely  per- 
plexing, and,  indeed,  involved  them  in  many  absurdi- 
ties. We  shall  have  occasion  later  on  to  refer  again  to 
the  confusion  thus  caused. 

It  is  strange  that  among  the  many  lives  of  missionary 
saints  in  Scotland  we  can  obtain  so  very  little  informa- 
tion as  to  the  character  of  the  heathenism  which 
prevailed  among  the  early  inhabitants  of  the  northern 
parts  of  Britain.  Caesar's  account  of  the  religion  of 
the  inhabitants  of  Gaul  and  of  Britain,  so  constantly 
appealed  to,  seems  to  me  to  import  into  the  beliefs  of 

^  Hill  Burlou's  Hisiory  of  Scotland,  vol.  i.,  p.  207.  For  ample 
pioof,  see  Skene's  Celtic  Scotland,  vol.  i.,  pp.  137,  39S, 


MYTHOLOGICAL    BEINGS.  2  1 

the  people  a  developed  mythology  which  is  not  to  be 
gathered  from  subsequent  documents.  Skene  {Celtic 
Scotland^  vol.  ii.,  p.  109  sq^  investigates  the  question 
with  his  usual  carefulness,  and  he  comes  to  the  conclu- 
sion that  the  principal  objects  of  popular  belief  were 
''the  personified  powers  of  nature."  "Mysterious 
beings,  who  were  supposed  to  dwell  in  the  heavens  or 
the  earth,  the  sea,  the  river,  the  mountain  or  the  valley, 
were  to  be  dreaded  and  conciliated.  These  they 
worshipped  and  invoked,  as  well  as  the  natural  objects 
themselves  in  which  they  were  supposed  to  dwell." 
The  Sidhe^  which  in  later  days  degenerated  into 
"  fairies,"  were,  according  to  some  of  the  ancient 
writers,  demons,  sometimes  appearing  in  the  form  of 
men  and  offering  to  show  "  secrets  and  places  of 
happiness." 

Recent  travels  in  Africa  present  us  with  forms  of 
heathenism  which  seem  to  me  to  bear  some  con- 
siderable resemblance  to  the  heathenism  of  Ireland  and 
northern  Britain  at  the  time  of  the  conversion  of  the 
people  to  Christianity.  For  example,  in  Uganda  we 
are  told  that  the  real  objects  of  such  worship  as  pre- 
vails are  the  hihari^  demons,  or  spirits  of  thunder, 
storm,  rain,  etc.,  and  especially  the  great  lubarl  of  the 
lake,  the  Nyanza.  In  Uganda,  as  in  many  other  of 
the  surrounding  districts,  there  does  not  appear  to  be 
any  idolatry  proper.  And  among  the  Celtic  people 
of  Britain  and  Ireland,  though  there  are  occasional 
notices  that  show  us  that  idols  were  not  wholly  un- 
known, they  seem  to  play  a  comparatively  unimportant 
part  in  the  religious  life  of  the  people.     The  Druids 


2  2  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

again  figure  much  more  as  diviners,  sorcerers,  or 
medicine-men  than  as  priests.  They  could  do  strange 
things  by  spells  and  incantations.  "  They  could 
bring  snow  on  the  plain,  .  .  .  they  could  cover  the 
land  with  sudden  darkness,  .  .  .  they  could,  with  the 
charm  called  the  '  Fluttering  Wisp,'  strike  their  un- 
happy victim  with  lunacy,  and  would  even  promise  to 
make  the  earth  swallow  him  up."^  Savage  and  bloody 
rites  to  propitiate  the  evil  powers  were  not  unknown. 
The  religion  of  our  forefathers  was  indeed  a  religion  of 
darkness  and  fear. 

I  have  not  come  across  any  certain  notice  of  the 
existence  of  idolatry  (using  the  word  in  the  sense  of 
the  religious  worship  of  images)  among  the  heathen 
of  Scotland,  but  it  would  be  rash  to  deny  its  exist- 
ence, as  we  can  scarcely  doubt  that,  beside  other 
glimpses,  there  is  some  foundation  for  the  story,  re- 
lated in  the  Tripartite  Life,  that  St.  Patrick  saw  "  the 
chief  idol  of  Ireland,  Cenn  Cruaich,  covered  with 
gold  and  silver,  and  twelve  other  idols  about  it, 
covered  with  brass."  ^' 

And  in  the  certainly  genuine  Confession  of  St.  Patrick 
we  find  him  speak  of  the  existence  of  idols  {inimunda 
idola)  in  Ireland.  Nor  do  I  feel  entirely  certain  that 
the  rude  naked  female  figure  in  wood,  nearly  five  feet 
in  height,  with  eyes  of  quartz  pebbles,  discovered 
(1881)  in  a  peat-moss  at  Ballachulish,  in  Argyllshire, 


^  Bishop  Healy,  Insula  Sanctorum  et  Doctoniin,  p.  4. 

-  See  the  discussion  in  Rhys'  Lectures  on  the  Origin  and 
Gro7vth  of  Relii^ion  as  illustrated  by  Celtic  Heathendom  {Hibhert 
Lectures,  1886),  p.  200  sq. 


LIFE    OF    NINIAN.  23 

may  not  be  really  an  idol  deity  of  the  early  Celtic 
inhabitants.^ 

We  may  now  return  to  relate  what  is  known  of  the 
history  of  St.  Ninian. 

The  earliest  and  most  trustworthy  authority  for  any 
facts  relating  to  the  life  of  Ninian  is  Venerable  Bede,^ 
whose  incidental  notice,  though  limited  to  a  few  lines, 
will  be  reasonably  reckoned  far  more  valuable  than 
the  more  elaborate  work  of  Ninian's  professed  bio- 
grapher, Aelred,  a  monk  of  Rievaulx,  in  Yorkshire, 
writing  some  seven  hundred  years  after  the  events  he 
professes  to  relate.  Aelred,  it  is  true,  claims  to  have 
made  use  of  an  earlier  life  of  his  hero ;  but,  though 
this  were  so,  the  character  of  his  narrative  is  such  as 
to  make  it  impossible  to  accept  much  of  it  as  his- 
torical. If  Aelred  is  not  primarily  responsible  for  all 
the  absurdities  it  contains,  the  earlier  biographer  must 
bear  his  share  of  the  discredit  that  now  attaches  to 
such  a  work.  It  was  doubtless  regarded  as  a  precious 
record  in  its  day.  We,  of  this  age,  would  much 
prefer  even  a  very  few  commonplace  particulars,  such, 
for  instance,  as  would  tell  us  something  about  the 
books  St.  Ninian  read  or  the  journeys  he  made,  or, 
indeed,  about  the  food  he  ate  and  the  clothes  he  wore, 

1  This  figure  is  now  placed  in  the  National  Museum  of  Anti- 
quities of  Scotland,  Edinburgh.  (KL.  53,  in  the  Catalogue.) 
Sir  Robert  Christison  discusses  the  nature  of  this  figure  in  the 
Proceedings  of  the  Society  of  Scottish  Antiquaries  {i^o-^i),  and 
shows  reasons  for  thinking  that  the  image  may  rather  be  a 
Scandinavian  idol.  The  Norsemen  were  known  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood of  Ballachulish,  and  figures  not  unlike  it,  and  believed 
to  be  idols,  have  been  found  in  Scandinavia. 

-  Eccl.  Hist.,  lib.  iii.  4. 


24  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

to  the  most  brilliant  firework  display  of  his  miracles. 
Aelred's  Life  of  St.  Ninian  was  a  deliberately  con- 
structed elogc,  written  at  the  desire  of  the  ecclesiastics 
of  Candida  Casa  in  honour  of  its  founder.  Now  at 
any  period  an  eloge  must  be  taken  with  caution ;  but 
an  eloge  written  in  a  credulous  age  upon  a  saint  who 
died  many  centuries  before,  and  whose  fame  it  was  of 
much  practical  importance  and  pecuniary  value  to 
maintain  and  extend,  deserves  a  special  scrutiny. 

If  Aelred  did  not  invent,  it  is  only  too  likely  that 
he  accepted  with  open  mouth  and  in  perfect  good 
faith  the  stories  told  by  the  earlier  writer.  Some  of 
the  legends  related  possess  a  certain  poetic  prettiness, 
and  some  of  them  may  be  construed  as  having  a 
moral  attached  to  them,  and  thus  prove  attractive  to 
people  who  are  not  over-scrupulous  as  to  whether  a 
tale  is  true,  provided  it  be  what  they  call  "edifying." 
But  for  myself  I  shall  confess  at  once  that  I  am  im- 
patient of  the  prodigious  and  fabulous,  and  demand 
a  large  accumulation  of  evidence  before  I  can  give 
it  another  designation,  or  feel  myself  spiritually 
benefited  by  it. 

The  main  facts  of  the  life  of  St.  Ninian,  as  they 
have  been  derived  from  these  two  sources — Bede  and 
Aelred — and  have  been  commonly  accepted  after 
the  sifting  processes  of  modern  historical  criticism, 
are  the  following.  Ninian  was  a  Briton,  born,  as  is 
conjectured,  about  the  year  350.  He  belonged  to  a 
district  on  the  shores  of  the  Solway ;  whether  on  the 
northern  or  southern  side  is  uncertain.  His  father, 
who  appears  to  have  been  a  man  of  rank  and  author- 


NINIAN  .S    EARLY    TRAINING. 


25 


ity — perhaps  a  regulus  or  tribal  chieftain — was  a 
Christian ;  and  Ninian  early  received  Christian  bap- 
tism. He  was  from  his  youth  a  diligent  student  of 
Holy  Scriptures,  and  as  he  grew  up  he  expressed  the 
strongest  desire  to  visit  Rome  with  a  view  to  gaining 
a  fuller  knowledge  of  Divine  truth.  We  may  remark 
in  passing  that  at  that  time,  while  the  Empire  was  as 
yet  unbroken  by  the  invasions  of  the  barbarians,  a 
journey  from  the  home  of  Ninian  by  the  Sol  way, 
along  the  great  military  and  postal  roads,  through 
Britain  and  Gaul  to  Rome,  could  have  been  per- 
formed with  perfect  orderliness,  ease,  and  safety.  He 
seems  to  have  reached  the  capital  during  the  epis- 
copate of  Damasus,  who  held  the  see  of  Rome  from 
the  year  366  to  the  year  384.  We  possess  copious 
materials  derived  Yrom  the  writings  of  his  contem- 
porary, Jerome,  and  other  sources  that  would  enable 
us  to  reconstruct  for  ourselves  the  surroundings, 
ecclesiastical  and  secular,  of  the  young  Briton  during 
his  stay  in  the  great  capital  of  the  West.  But  con- 
fining ourselves  to  the  outline  of  the  facts  of  his 
history,  we  learn  from  Bede  that  at  Rome  he  was 
regularly  instructed  in  the  faith  and  the  mysteries  of 
religion.  The  wish  felt  by  Ninian  to  receive  his 
training  at  Rome  was  as  natural  as  would  be  the 
desire  of  some  intelligent  and'eager  Kaffir  youth  from 
our  South  African  mission  field,  to  gain  the  advan- 
tages of  the  theological  training  that  might  be  had  at 
Oxford  or  Cambridge,  or  some  other  of  the  centres 
of  Anglican  church-life  at  home.  And  we  can  also 
readily  credit  the  statements  of  his  biographer  that  he 


26  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

spent  in  Rome  many  years,  and  was,  in  the  end, 
consecrated  to  the  episcopal  office  by  the  Bishop  of 
Rome  himself,  and  sent  back  to  carry  on  the  work  of 
missionary  and  pastor  in  his  native  land.  On  his 
return  journey  through  Gaul,  it  is  related  that  he  was 
attracted  by  the  fame  of  St.  Martin  of  Tours — that 
from  him,  on  leaving,  he  procured  masons  whom  he 
might  take  with  him  to  build  a  church,  after  the 
approved  ecclesiastical  style,  in  the  district  where  he 
was  about  to  labour.  On  his  return  home  he  fixed 
his  place  of  abode,  or,  rather,  his  centre  of  missionary 
work,  at  Leukophibia,  a  place  at  or  near  what  is  now 
the  little  town  and  royal  burgh  of  Whithorn  in  Wigton- 
shire.  Here  he  built  his  church  of  stone ;  and  in  a 
style  to  which  the  Britons  were  unaccustomed.  This 
building  subsequently  gave  its  name  of  Candida  Casa, 
or  White  House,  to  the  bishopric.^ 

Where  chronological  guides  are  so  very  few,  we 
eagerly  seize  on  the  statement  that  while  building  this 
church  Ninian  heard  of  the  death  of  his  friend 
Martin,  bishop  of  Tours,  and  that  under  his  name  he 
dedicated  the  structure  to  the  glory  of  God.  The 
death  of  the  great  bishop  of  Tours  is  now  generally 
assigned  to  the  end  of  the  year  397.-  Beside  labour- 
ing in  the  district  of  Galloway  and,  not  improbably,  in 


^  Bede  says  nothing  about  procuring  masons  from  St.  Martin, 
but  only  that  the  church  was  built  of  stone,  in  a  manner  unusual 
with  the  Britons. 

-  Nov.  nth.  Well  known  in  Scotland  as  the  term-day 
"Martinmas."  As  a  help  to  memory,  it  may  be  recalled  that 
200  years  later,  in  597,  another  Roman  missionary,  Augustine 
of  Canterbury,  landed  in  the  south  of  England. 


NINIAN  S    MISSIONARY    WORK.  27 

the  district  that  includes  what  is  now  Cumberland 
and  Westmoreland,  Ninian  carried  on  his  missionary 
work  among  the  great  body  of  the  southern  Picts 
inhabiting  the  middle  parts  of  Scotland  south  of  the 
Grampians.  His  labours  were  attended  with  success  ; 
the  heathen  renounced  their  superstition,  and  ac- 
cepted the  religion  of  Christ.  It  is  further  told  us 
that  he  ordained  presbyters,  consecrated  bishops, 
organized  the  Church,  and  divided  the  country  into 
ecclesiastical  districts. ^  There  is,  to  my  mind,  no- 
thing in  itself  improbable  in  this  statement  of  Aelred's. 
Ninian's  training  was  in  Roman  ways  of  thought,  and 
the  ecclesiastical  organization  of  settled  churches,  like 
those  of  Italy,  with  which  he  was  familiar,  may  well 
have  suggested  the  attempt  to  effect  something  similar 
at  home.  And  that  the  diocesan  system,  if  estab- 
lished, did  not  long  maintain  itself  if  it  were,  instead 
of  being  gradually  extended  as  success  might  warrant, 
given  rather  a  nominal  than  a  real  existence,  is  no 
more  than  might  be  expected,  when  we  consider  the 
wild  turbulence  of  the  age  and  people,  and  the  too 
speedy  relapsing  into  heathenism  of  their  main  body. 

While  Ninian  was  absent  from  Britain,  the  with- 
drawal of  the  Roman  troops  by  the  usurper  Maximus 
left  the  country  exposed  to  one  of  the  most  formid- 
able of  the  incursions  of  the  Picts,  who  were  now 
joined  by  the  Scots  from  Ireland.  It  was  not  till  the 
year  after  Ninian's  return  that  the  northern  wall  was 

^  Vita  Niniani,  cap.  vi.  Whether  the  word  parochia  is  here 
used  in  the  sense  of  bishopric,  or  in  its  more  modern  sense,  is 
uncertain. 


28  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    TN    SCOTLAND. 

recovered,  and  a  legion  sent  to  Britain  to  protect  it. 
It  would  need  a  greater  knowledge  of  the  circum- 
stances than  we  possess  to  enable  us  to  feel  entirely 
confident  that  Ninian's  difficulties  were  enhanced  by 
this  state  of  things  when  he  entered  on  his  missionary 
labours  among  the  Picts.  But  one  can  hardly  imagine 
that  the  Picts  would  not,  more  especially  at  that 
moment,  have  looked  with  keen  suspicion  on  one 
who  was  so  thoroughly  associated  with  the  religion  of 
the  hostile  power  of  Rome. 

In  the  central  and  south-western  parts  of  what 
is  modern  Scotland,  and  in  the  west  of  northern 
England,  Ninian  laboured  for  many  years.  He  died 
and  was  buried  at  Whithorn  ;  but  the  exact  date 
(i6th  Sept.,  432)  commonly  assigned  for  his  death 
has  no  certain  basis  of  authority. 

It  is  in  a  very  high  degree  probable  that  the  mon- 
astic system  was  introduced  into  northern  Britain  by 
St.  Ninian,  and  that  to  him  the  great  monastery 
which  afterwards  flourished  at  Whithorn  owed  its 
foundation.  To  this  nionastery,  till  destroyed  by 
Saxon  invaders,  both  Welsh  and  Irish  students 
resorted  in  great  numbers. 

There  has  been  among  some  historians  in  this 
country  a  foolish  exhibition  of  rooted  prejudice  in 
the  dislike  shown  by  them  to  acknowledge  the  in- 
debtedness of  the  British  Church  to  Rome.  A  wider 
knowledge  of  ecclesiastical  history  and  ecclesiastical 
literature  would  have  shown  that  there  was  perhaps 
no  Church  in  Christendom  more  free  from  doctrinal 
corruptions  than  the  Church  of  Rome  at  the  period  of 


BRITAIN    AND    THE    CHURCH    Ul-'    ROME.  29 

which  we  are  speaking.  As  a  friend  of  mine  has 
sometimes  put  it,  paradoxically,  to  audiences  who 
were  not  likely  to  misunderstand  him,  the  Pope  was 
then  a  Protestant ;  or,  to  express  oneself  with  more 
accuracy,  though  more  diflfusely,  the  Bishops  of 
Rome  had  not  then  put  forward  the  monstrous  pre- 
tensions to  universal  jurisdiction  that  appear  in  later 
days,  nor  had  the  doctrines  which  they  inculcated  yet 
taken  the  unscriptural  and  uncatholic  shapes  that 
some  of  them  assumed  in  mediaeval  times.  There 
is  certainly  everything  to  be  grateful  for,  and  nothing 
to  resent,  in  the  interest  shown  by  the  Bishop  of 
Rome  in  the  Church  of  the  Roman  settlements  in 
Britain,  and  in  missionary  effort  among  the  heathen 
on  the  borders  of  what  were,  or  had  recently  been, 
Roman  possessions. 

The  varying  fortunes  of  Ninian's  foundation  may 
here  be  briefly  sketched.  After  the  death  of  the 
founder  (though  of  the  Monastery  we  get  occasional 
glimpses),  the  history  of  the  See  is  enveloped  in  mist 
and  darkness  for  the  long  space  of  three  hundred 
years.  On  the  conquest  of  the  British  kingdom  of 
Strathclyde  by  the  Angles,  Candida  Casa  again 
emerges  into  light ;  and  what  is  apparently  an  entirely 
new  succession  of  bishops  takes  its  origin  in  a.d.  731. 
But  after  some  seven  or  eight  occupants  of  the 
bishopric,  whose  names  have  come  down  to  us,  we 
again  lose  hold  of  the  record  amid  the  violence  and 
bloodshed  of  that  turbulent  and  unhappy  period.  At 
the  instance  of  King  David  I.,  aided  by  the  Lord 
of  Galloway,  the   bishopric   was    (11 26)  once    more 


30  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

erected,  and  with  the  king's  sanction  made  one  of 
the  suffragan  sees  of  York.  The  ecclesiastical  dis- 
tribution of  the  country,  though,  for  the  sake  of 
convenience,  tending  to  follow  the  lines  of  change  in 
civil  government,  in  this  as  in  other  instances  afforded 
by  Scottish  history,  exhibited  an  adhesion  to  ancient 
boundaries  that  only  slowly  gave  way.^  When  St. 
Andrews  was  erected  (1472)  into  a  metropolitical  see 
by  Pope  Sixtus  IV.,  the  bishopric  of  Candida  Casa 
was,  in  spite  of  the  protests  of  the  Archbishop  of  York, 
finally  removed  from  English  authority,  and  remained 
a  suffragan  see  of  St.  Andrews  until  it  was,  in  1491, 
subjected  to  the  see  of  Glasgow,  on  the  latter  being 
raised  to  the  archiepiscopal  dignity. 

We  know,  on  the  authority  of  Bede,  that  the  body 
of  St.  Ninian  was  interred  in  his  own  church  at 
Candida  Casa.  The  possession  of  such  veneKable 
and  highly-valued  relics  in  the  course  of  years 
brought  crowds  of  pilgrims,  of  different  countries,  and 
of  all  ranks,  to  the  remote  corner  where  was  situated 
the  shrine  of  the  saint.  Even  in  days  of  war,  the 
English  or  Irish  pilgrim  was  sometimes  officially 
secured  protection  during  a  visit  prompted  by  so 
excellent  a  motive  as  devotion  to  St.  Ninian.  If 
Whithorn  were  not  earlier  visited  by  royal  personages 
(as  the  Scottish  historian,  Boece,  would  have  us 
believe),  certainly  the  good  Queen  Margaret,  wife  of 

^  "In  1214  the  Bishop  of  Candida  Casa  received  pay  from 
the  iiistodes  of  the  see  of  York  for  taking  charge  of  the  spiritu- 
alities during  the  vacancy  of  the  see." — Bp.  Forbes,  Historians 
of  Scotland,  vol.  v.,  p.  xlix. 


NINIAN  S    POWER    IN    SCOTLAND.  3 1 

James  III.,  made  a  solemn  pilgrimage  to  the  place  in 
1473  ;  while  the  gallant  James  IV.,  who  fell  at  Flodden, 
moved  perhaps  by  a  just  remorse  for  the  deeds  of 
earlier  years,  made  repeated  journeys  to  the  holy  shrine. 

The  memory  of  Ninian  was  a  power  in  Scotland ; 
and  dedications  under  his  name  of  churches  and 
altarages  were  common ;  nor  were  they  confined  to 
the  principal  scenes  of  his  labours,  but  were  to  be 
found  in  every  quarter  of  the  kingdom.  Holy  wells 
bearing  his  name  probably  mark  the  Christianity  of  a 
date  ^  earlier  than  the  dedications. 

The  name  "  Ninian,"  undergoing  in  the  language  of 
the  people  a  phonetic  change,  sometimes  appears  as 
"  Ringan."  Thus  in  the  poem  of  Sir  David  Lindsay 
(?  1490 — ?  1567)  entitled  "  Ane  dialog  betwixt  Experi- 
ence and  ane  Courtier,"  we  find  among  "the  imageis 
usit  amang  Christian  men  " — 

*'  Sanct  Roche,  weill  seisit,  men  may  see, 
Ane  byill  new  broken  on  his  thye, 
Sanct  Eloye  he  doth  staitly  stand 
Ane  new  horse-shoe  intyll  his  hand, 
Sanct  Ringan  of  a  rottin  stoke, 
Sanct  Duthow  -  boird  out  of  ane  bloke."" 

While  an  ancient  bell  of  the  early  Celtic  type,  made 
of  iron  coated  with  bronze,  known  as  "  Clog-Rinny," 

^  See  Bishop  Forbes,  Historians  of  Scotland,  vol.  v.,  pp.  xiii — 
xvii.  In  the  present  century  many  cliurches  have  been  dedicated 
under  the  name  of  St.  Ninian,  among  which  we  may  particu- 
hirize  the  cathedral  at  Perth,  built  after  a  fine  design  of  Mr. 
Butterfield. 

-'  /.  e.  Duthac  of  Tain  in  Ross-shire. 

•^  See'  Bishop  Forbes'  Introduction  to  the  Historians  of  Scot- 
land, vol.  v.,  p.  xxvi. 


32  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

or  Ringan's  Bell,  has  come  down  to  us,  and  ma}' 
now  be  seen  in  the  National  Museum  of  Antiquities  in 
Edinburgh  (see  p.  309).  I  fancy  it  may  be  through 
an  adhesion  of  the  final  "t"  of ''Saint"  or  "Sanct" 
to  the  first  letter  of  "Ringan,"  that  we  approach  the 
form  "  St.  Trinian  "  in  the  old  English  ballad  of  Flod- 
den  Field.  Similarly  1  conjecture  that  by  a  reverse 
process  St.  Thenew  became  St.  Enoch  (see  p.  54). 

It  has  already  been  stated  that  there  is  no  reason 
to  doubt  that  Ninian  founded  a  monastery  at  Can- 
dida Casa.  This  monastery  afterwards  attained  much 
distinction  as  a  school  of  learning.  And  it  has  of 
late  been  accepted  by  careful  inquirers  that  this 
monastery,  easily  reached  from  the  north  of  Ireland 
and  frequented  by  Irish  students,  was  one  of  the 
channels  through* which  the  monastic  system  reached 
the  sister  island. ^ 

^  Skene,  Celtic  Scotland,  vol.  ii.,  pp.  46-9.  This  view  is  also 
accepted  by  Bishop  Healy  {Insula  Sanctornm-  et  Doctoriini^  p. 
166).  These  writers  identify  the  "House  of  Martin"  and  the 
monastery  of  *'  Rosnat  "  (which  word  has  been  conjecturally 
interpreted  as  the  "  Promontory  of  Learning  ")  occurring  in  Irish 
records  with  tlie  monastery  of  Whithorn.  If  it  is  true  that  St. 
Finnian  of  Moville  had  been  a  student  at  Candida  Casa,  it  is 
interesting  to  trace  through  him  the  influence  of  the  school  of 
St.  Ninian  upon  his  more  famous  pupil,  St.  Columba. 


33 


CHAPTER  II. 

ST.    PATRICK,    A    CHILD    OF     THE     BRITISH    CHURCH     IN 
SCOTLAND. 

The  next  historic  name  of  note  that  meets  us  as  we 
trace  the  story  of  the  Christian  Church  in  Scotland  is 
that  of  Patrick,  the  Apostle  of  Ireland. 

The  narrative  of  St.  Patrick's  missionary  labours 
belongs  properly  to  the  ecclesiastical  history  of  the 
sister  island,  and  I  do  not  purpose  to  relate  it  here. 
But  as  St.  Patrick  may  be  claimed,  and  claimed  with 
good  reason,  as  a  native  of  North  Britain,  and  a 
spiritual  child  of  the  British  Church  in  this  part  of  the 
country,  it  will  not  be  unsuitable  to  say  a  few  words 
with  reference  to  his  early  history;  and  this  we  are 
the  more  encouraged  to  do  because  there  are  two  or 
three  particulars  connected  with  his  life  that  happily 
throw  some  few  rays  of  light  into  the  mist  of  obscurity 
that  envelops  the  condition  of  the  Christian  Church 
in  Scotland  at  that  remote  period. 

It  is  not  now  doubted  by  the  best  critical  authori. 
ties  that  we  have  in  our  possession  at  least  two 
genuine  writings  of  St.  Patrick.  One  of  these  is  what 
is  known  as  his  Confession,  written  towards  the  close 
of  his  life,   and   giving   some   account   of  its  chief 

c 


34  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

incidents.  Ttie  other  is  an  epistle  commonly  known 
as  the  Epistle  to  Coroticus^  whom  some  would  identify 
with  the  Welsh  prince  Caredig ;  while  others — more 
recent  scholars,  among  whom  are  Mr.  Skene  and  Mr. 
Whitley  Stokes — contend  that  this  Coroticus  was  a 
prince  of  Strathclyde,  Ceretic  by  name,  who  had  his 
capital  at  Alclwyd  (/.  e.  Dumbarton),  from  the  neigh- 
bourhood of  which  St.  Patrick  had  been  carried  cap- 
tive. The  epistle  to  the  subjects  of  Coroticus  (who- 
ever he  was)  was  suggested  by  the  cruelties  perpetrated 
by  that  chieftain  in  his  ravaging  the  Irish  coast,  and 
carrying  captive  great  numbers  of  St.  Patrick's  Chris- 
tian converts.  Both  these  writings  seem  to  me  to 
possess  very  many  of  the  characteristic  marks  of 
genuineness,  and,  as  I  have  just  said,  they  have  been 
accepted  by  those  who  are  best  versed  in  the  science 
of  historical  criticism.  Both  these  writings  contain 
notices  (though  of  the  briefest  kind)  of  Patrick's  early 
life. 

It  has  been  generally  believed  that  the  birthplace 
of  St.  Patrick  was  at,  or  close  by,  Dumbarton  on  the 
Clyde;  and  though  claims  to  this  distinction  have 
been  made  on  behalf  of  other  places,^  no  sufficient 
reason  has  as  yet  been  shown  for  departing  from  the 
commonly  received  account.  He  tells  us  himself 
that  he  was  of  gentle  blood  {inge?iuus  seciaidum  car- 
7ie?n\  that  his  paternal  grandfather  had  been  a  priest, 
and  that  his  father  was  a  deacon  in  the  Church.  His 
father  possessed  a  Httle  country  house  attached  to  a 

^  E.  g.  Glastonbury,  Bristol,  Carlisle,  Boulogne,  Tours,  Car- 
leon,  and  Ireland  itself. 


ST.    PATRICK  S    PARENTAGE. 


35 


farm,  close  by  the  town  of  Bannavem  of  Tabernia. 
The  identification  of  this  name  has  given  rise  to 
animated  dispute,  but  I  have  followed  the  general 
belief  in  supposing  the  place  to  be  what  is  now  called 
Dumbarton.  In  this  town  the  father  of  Patrick,  as  well , 
as  being  a  deacon  of  the  Church,  held  the  responsible 
post  of  a  "  decurion,"  an  ofhce  which  originated  in 
the  municipal  system  of  the  Roman  Empire,  and  to 
which  the  office  of  town-councillor,  or  bailie,  in  our 
modern  Scottish  municipalities  bears  some  considerable 
resemblance.^ 

You  will  note  then,  in  the  first  place,  that  the 
celibacy  of  the  clergy  was  not  at  this  time  insisted 
on  in  the  Church  in  Northern  Britain.  In  some  later 
ages  it  would  have  been  considered  a  disgrace  to  be 
the  child  of  an  ecclesiastic,  but  I  think  we  can  detect 
that,  as  St.  Patrick  states  the  fact,  he  puts  it  forward 
rather  as  a  mark  of  his  respectability.  "  I  had,"  he 
writes  in  the  opening  of  the  account  of  his  life,  "for 
my  father,  Calpornius,  a  Deacon,  who  had  been  son  of 
Potitus,  a  Presbyter."  And  if,  as  has  been  suggested 
by  Roman  Catholic  controversialists,  in  both  cases  the 
children  may  have  been  born  before  the  assumption 
of  holy  orders  by  the  fathers,  St.  Patrick  certainly 


^  Decurions  "  were'found  all  over  the  Roman  Empire  to  its 
extremest  bounds  by  the  end  of  the  fourth  century.  Some  dis- 
coveries in  Spain  about' ten  years  ago  {i.e.  about  1877)  showed 
that  Decurions  were  established  by  the  Romans  in  every  little 
mining  village,  and  were  charged  with  the  care  of  the  games,  the 
water-supply,  sanitary  arrangements,  education,  and  the  local 
fortifications." — Professor  George  T.  Stokes,  in  Smith  and  Wace's 
Dictionary  of  Christian  Biography. 


36  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

never  thought  it  necessary  for  the  credit  of  his  father 
and  grandfather  to  mention  the  fact.  The  truth  is 
that  at  this  period  both  the  practice  and  sentiment  of 
the  Church  varied  in  different  places.  A  beHef  in  the 
•superior  sanctity  of  celibacy  had  manifested  itself  long 
before  the  time  of  St.  Patrick  in  many  parts  of  Chris- 
tendom. The  monastic  system  was  an  outcome  of  it; 
but  the  attempt,  when  made,  to  compel  the  clergy 
ministering  to  the  general  body  of  the  faithful  to  live 
unmarried  was  as  yet  but  very  partially  successful  in 
the  West ;  while  in  the  East,  where  the  monastic 
system  originated  and  flourished  in  full  vigour,  the 
celibacy  of  the  secular  clergy  has  never  even  to 
this  day  been  enforced,  and  is,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
quite  the  exception. 

From  St.  Patrick's  mention  of  his  father  as  a  deacon, 
who  was  also  a  decurion,  and  possibly  engaged  in 
farming  operations,  it  may  be  plausibly  inferred  that 
there  may  have  been  in  that  age  in  North  Britain 
something  like  what  is  found  in  the  Greek  Church, 
and  what  some  of  our  bishops  are  disposed  now  to 
revive  among  ourselves,  a  permanent  diaconate — not 
so  rigorously  debarred  from  secular  employments  as 
were  the  higher  grades  of  the  clergy.  If  this  were 
so,  it  must  be  acknowledged  to  be  an  exception  to 
the  general  spirit  of  ecclesiastical  legislation  elsewhere, 
which  tended  wholly  in  the  direction  of  severing 
those  in  holy  orders  from  worldly  business. 

While  Patrick  was  not  yet  sixteen,  a  body  of 
marauding  freebooters  from  Ireland,  sailing,  as  we 
may  suppose,  up  the  Firth  of  Clyde,  seized  upon  him 


ST.    PATRICK    IN    SLAVERY.  37 

at  his  father's  farm,  and  he  was  swept  with  a  crowd  of 
other  captives — "many  thousands"  in  number,  he 
says  himself  (though  this  may  be  an  unintentional 
exaggeration) — into  the  ships  of  the  Irish  barbarians, 
and  carried  across  the  sea  to  serve  in  slavery.  In 
Antrim  he  was  occupied  for  six  years  as  a  herd, 
and  it  was  during  this  unhappy  period  of  his  life  that 
he  gained  that  knowledge  of  the  Irish  tongue  which 
he  afterwards  used  so  effectively  as  a  missionary, 
preacher,  and  bishop.  But  better  than  gaining  a 
knowledge  of  Irish  was  his  gaining  during  those 
tedious  years  a  knowledge  of  himself,  and  of  the  in- 
finite love  of  his  Heavenly  Father.  The  lessons  of  his 
childhood,  which,  if  we  may  believe  his  own  depre- 
ciatory remarks  upon  his  history,  had  not  secured  in 
his  boyhood  submission  to  the  law  of  God,  nor,  as 
he  says  in  his  own  words,  *'  obedience  to  our  priests 
who  used  to  warn  us  to  the  end  that  we  might  be 
saved  " — these  lessons  now  came  back  to  his  memory, 
and  the  truth  was  made  known  to  his  heart.  He  tells 
us  how  the  fear  and  love  of  God  increased  within 
him,  and  how  earnestly  and  constantly  he  devoted 
himself  to  prayer.  There  is  a  genuine  touch  of  the 
age  in  which  he  lived  when  he  recounts  that  often  in 
a  single  day  he  would  say  a  hundred  prayers, ^  and  in 
the  night-time  almost  as  many,  and  that  he  often  rose 
before  daybreak  and  offered  his  prayers  in  the  woods 
or  upon  the  mountain  side,  and  this—in  snow,  or 
frost,  or  rain.  And  not  only  did  he  pray,  he  also 
fasted,  and  he  declares  of  himself  there  was  *'  no 
^  Or  short  devotions  after  the  manner  of  collects  [orationes). 


38  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

laziness"  in  him,  because,  as  he  came  afterwards  to 
see,  "  the  spirit  burned  within  him." 

After  six  years'  captivity  Patrick  made  his  escape, 
and  after  some  years,  during  which  his  history  is 
obscure,  we  find  him  in  Britain  with  his  parents.  But 
in  his  dreams  he  is  moved  to  return  to  the  land  of  his 
captivity.  A  messenger  appears  to  bring  him  a  letter 
from  Ireland,  entreating  his  return.  He  hears  a  cry 
— "  the  voice  of  the  Irish  " — asking  him  to  come  back 
and  stay  with  them,  and  he  cannot  but  respond  to 
the  call.  Here  his  connection  with  Scotland  ceases, 
and  his  after-career  as  a  missionary  and  bishop,  full 
of  interest  as  it  is,  falls  outside  our  province. 

A  (ew  words,  however,  may  be  said  on  the  personal 
character  of  St.  Patrick.  The  acknowledged  writings 
of  the  saint  supply  materials  out  of  which  a  picture 
may  be  constructed,  which,  though  slight,  is  no 
mere  fancy  sketch,  but  possesses  qualities  of  a  true 
moral  portraiture.  He  is  seen  in  these  writings  as  a 
man  of  great  determination  and  force  of  character,  of 
earnest  devotion,  of  deep  humility.  He  is  sensitive 
to  the  accusations  of  conscience;  sins  of  his  youth 
come  back  with  sorrow  to  his  memory.  He  is  sensi- 
tive, too,  like  many  good  men,  to  charges  made 
against  him  by  others,  though  he  knows  those  charges 
to  be  ill-founded.  His  warmth  of  sympathy  and 
affection  for  the  Irish,  among  whom  he  had  served 
as  a  slave,  is  portrayed  by  some  very  natural  touches 
in  the  Confession.  His  well-known  hymn  in  the  Irish 
tongue  has  been  often  translated  into  English,  and  for 
its  glow  of  imagination  and  fervour  of  devotion  to 


CHRONOLOGY    OF    ST.    PATRICK.  39 

God   it   will  always  challenge  a   high   place  in    the 
history  of  Christian  hymnology. 

The  chronology  of  the  life  of  St.  Patrick  is  involved 
in  much  obscurity.  His  capture  as  a  youth  by  the 
Irish  must  be  placed  towards  the  close  of  the  fourth 
or  the  beginning  of  the  fifth  century.  It  seems 
impossible  to  be  more  precise  with  any  reasonable 
confidence.  The  year  432  is  the  date  commonly 
accepted  for  St.  Patrick's  landing  as  a  missionary  in 
Ireland ;  but  even  this  important  and  well-marked 
event  has  been  placed  somewhat  later  by  some  able 
scholars.  On  the  other  hand,  one  of  the  most  dis- 
tinguished of  the  Celtic  scholars  of  our  time,  Mr. 
Whitley  Stokes,  places  this  event  as  early  as  397.'^ 
His  death  at  the  age  of  120  (a.d.  493)  is  still  more 
questionable,  more  especially  when  we  find  the  fond- 
ness of  the  ancient  hagiologists  for  assigning  extra- 
ordinary longevity  to  their  heroes.  Instances  of  this 
will  be  noticed  later  on.-^ 

^  I  have  accepted  the  prevailing  opinion  as  to  this  hymn, 
known  as  the  "  Lorica, "  or  '•'Breastplate."  Tradition  is  strongly 
in  favour  of  its  being  the  work  of  St.  Patrick  ;  and  its  contents 
are  not  only  consistent  with,  but  confirmatory  of  this  belief. 

-  The  Tripartite  Life  of  St.  Patrick,  vol.  ii.  p.  273. 

•'  See  p.  69. 


40 


CHAPTER  III. 

ST.  PALLADIUS,  AND  HIS  DISCIPLES,  ST.  TERNAN  AND 
ST.  SERF — THE  ORIGIN  OF  THE  MYTH  OF  A  NON- 
EPISCOPAL    CHURCH    IN    ANCIENT    SCOTLAND. 

The  name  of  a  contemporary  of  St.  Patrick,  of 
whom  we  know  something  from  a  distinctly  authentic 
source,  has  been  long  associated  by  tradition,  and  in 
the  writings  of  the  mediaeval  historians,  with  Christian 
missionary  effort  in  the  north-eastern  part  of  Scotland. 
At  Fordun,  in  Kincardineshire,  a  church  was  dedicated 
to  St.  Palladius,  and  was  believed  to  contain  his 
relics.  The  place  was  visited  by  pilgrims ;  a  well 
situated  there  is  known  as  "  Paldy's  Well  " ;  and  in 
recent  times,  if  it  be  not  still  continued,  a  fair  held 
on  the  festival  of  the  saint  (July  6)  was  known  as 
"  Paldy  "  or  "Pady's  fair."  ^  John  of  Fordun,  a 
"  chaplain,"  as  it  would  seem,  or  chantry-priest  "of 
the  church  of  Aberdeen,"  and  the  earliest  systematic 
historian  of  Scotland,  writing  in  the  latter  half  of  the 
fourteenth  century  {c'wc.  1385),  would  have  us  believe 
that   St.    Palladius   was   sent   to   Scotland    by   Pope 

"  Paldy  "  is  locally  pronounced  "  Pauldy ''  or  "  Paudy." 


ST.    PALLADIUS.  4 1 

Celestinus  in  429  or  430,  and  with  him  he  associates 
as  disciples  and  fellow-labourers  St.  Ternan  and  St. 
Serf  (Servanus),  who  were  ordained  bishops  by  him. 

The  same  story  is  repeated  by  subsequent  historians 
with  more  or  less  of  modification.  Nor  should  we 
have  reason  to  question  it,  but  for  the  fact  that  we 
now  know  the  exact  source  of  Fordun's  information 
so  far  as  the  mission  from  Celestine  is  concerned, 
and  we  know  too  that  he  has  certainly  misinterpreted 
the  authority  on  which  he  founds.  The  value  of 
Fordun's  authority  for  the  labours  of  Palladius  in 
Scotland,  and  for  his  converting  Ternan  and  Serf,  we 
are  less  able  to  estimate  ;  and  the  latest  critical  in- 
vestigator of  the  question.  Dr.  W.  F.  Skene,  has  with 
much  learning  and  ingenuity  maintained  that  Palla- 
dius was  martyred  in  Ireland,  and  never  laboured  in 
the  north  of  Scotland — attributing  the  Scottish  tra- 
dition and  the  Scottish  cultus  of  St.  Palladius  to 
Ternan  having  brought  the  relics  of  Palladius  from 
Ireland  and  deposited  them  at  some  place  in  the 
north-east  of  Scotland.^  A  thorough  investigation  of 
the  evidence  would  occupy  more  space  than  can  be 
afforded  to  it  in  these  pages ;  but  I  may  venture  to 
say  that,  after  weighing  what  has  been  said  on  both 
sides,  I  am  disposed  to  thkik  that  we  are  not  entitled 
to  reject  with  entire  confidence  the  hitherto  prevailing 
belief  that  a  missionary  named  Palladius  laboured 
for  the  spread  of  Christianity  in  Scotland.  But,  as  I 
have  said,  that  Fordun  misinterpreted  his  authority 
for  the  statement  that  Pope  Celestine  sent  Palladius 
^   Celtic  Scotland^  vol.  ii.,  pp.  26 — 31. 


42  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

to  Scotland  in  a.d.  429  or  430,  there  can  be  no  doubt 
whatever.  His  words  are  substantially  a  quotation 
from  the  Chronica  of  Prosper  of  Aquitaine  (a  con- 
temporary of  Palladius),  who  has,  under  the  year  431, 
the  words,  "Palladius  is  ordained  by  Pope  Celestine, 
and  sent  as  first  bishop  to  the  Scots  beh'eving  in 
Christ."  It  is  now,  I  suppose,  universally  admitted 
that  at  the  date  of  Prosper's  writing,  and  indeed  for 
several  centuries  after,  the  word  Scotia  meant  "  Ire- 
land," and  Scoti  "  Irishmen."  But  by  the  time  of 
Fordun  the  words  had  changed  .their  meaning,  and 
hence  his  error,  which  has  since  been  again  and  again 
repeated.  1 

The  question  as  to  the  labours  of  Palladius  in  the 
country  we  know  as  Scotland  is  for  us  of  really  but 
little  importance,  for  even  in  the  fullest  accounts  he 
is  little  more  than  a  name.- 

If  the  Palladius  of  Scottish  story  is  to  be  identified 


^  In  anotlier  work  of  Prosper,  entitled  Contra  Collaforci/i,  a 
controversial  treatise  against  John  Cassian,  who  had  written  a 
work  entitled  Conferences  (Collationes)  of  the  Fathers  d7oelli>ig 
in  the  Scithic  Desert^  we  find  a  passage  referring  to  Palladius — 
*'  Whilst  the  Pope  laboured  to  keep  the  Roman  island  Catholic, 
he  made  the  barbarous  island  Christian  by  ordaining. a  bishop 
for  the  vScots  "  (cap.  xxi.). 

-  To  Roman  Catholics  in  iicotland  the  subject  is  of  more 
interest.  The  Roman  Catholic  historian,  Dr.  Bellesheim  {His- 
tory of  the  Catholic  Church  of  Scot/and,  in  Hunter  Blair's  edition, 
vol.  i,,  pp.  18 — 24),  is  evidently  inclined  to  accept  Dr.  Skene's 
solution,  but  thinks  it  dutiful  to  say,  "It  is  not  in  fact  possible 
to  arrive  at  the  truth  of  the  matter  with  perfect  certainty;  and  since 
an  ancient  and  venerable  tradition  points  to  St.  Palladius  as  an 
Apostle  ot  Scotland,  Leo  XIII.  was  fully  justified,  in  his  Ikill 
restoring  the  Scottish  hierarchy  in  1878,  in  accepting  the  tradition 
in  question."     This  is  an  instructive  passage. 


PRESBYTERIAN    MYTH.  43 

with  the  Palladius  sent  to  Ireland  by  Pope  Celestine, 
we  know  that  it  was  through  his  instrumentaHty  that 
St.  Germanus,  Bishop  of  Auxerre,  was  commissioned 
by  Celestine  to  proceed  to  Britain  to  combat  Pelagi- 
anism,  which  had  spread  widely  in  that  country.  This 
happened  in  429,  two  years  before  the  mission  of 
Palladius  to  Ireland.  Palladius  was  a  "  deacon  of 
the  Roman  Church  " — that  is,  as  I  take  it,  he  occu- 
pied a- place  of  prominence  and  dignity  as  one  of  the 
seven  deacons  of  the  city  of  Rome.  It  has  been 
conjectured  that  he  was  a  Gaul  by  birth,  as  the 
Palladian  family  occupied  an  important  place  in  that 
country. 

The  chapter  of  Fordun's  Chronicle  in  which  he  gives 
us  his  account  of  Palladius,  came  curiously  enough  to 
play  a  very  important  part  in  the  creation  of  the 
myth — which  was  so  long  generally  accepted  in  Scot- 
land, and  is  perhaps  not  yet  quite  defunct — that  there 
existed  in  Scotland  in  early  times  a  church  constructed, 
as  regards  ecclesiastical  government,  on  the  Presby- 
terian model.  It  is  only  fair  to  Presbyterian  writers  of 
former  days  to  acknowledge  that  it  was  most  natural 
for  them  to  seize  and  make  much  of  a  testimony 
coming  from  a  source  so  little  likely  to  be  prejudiced 
in  favour  of  their  views  as  an  ecclesiastic  of  the 
Roman  obedience  in  mediaeval  times.  Now  that  we 
know  that  Fordun's  error  originated  in  a  misunder- 
standing of  the  word  "  Scots,"  as  used  by  Prosper,  it 
is  worth  our  while  to  quote  the  passage  of  Fordun, 
and  observe  the  growth  of  the  myth.  After  first 
recounting  how  Pope  Celestine  had  introduced  into 


44  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

the  celebration  of  the  Mass  the  Psahn,  "  Judge  me,  O 
Lord,"  before  the  Introit,  and  enjoined  that  the  introit, 
gradalia,  and  alleluHa  should  be  taken  from  the 
Psalms,  and  that  the  offertoria  and  collects  during  the 
Communion  should  be  sung  with  musical  inflexions 
{modulatiofie) — the  importance  of  noting  these  ritual 
ordinances  will  be  seen  by  and  by — he  goes  on  to 
say  that  in  the  year  429  or  430  St.  Palladius  w^as 
ordained  by  the  same  pope  and  "  sent  as  first  bishop 
to  the  Scots  believing  in  Christ."  A  few  lines  lower 
dovvn,  after  repeating  that  Pope  Celestine  sent  Palla- 
dius as  first  bishop  in  Scotia,  it  is  added,  "  Whence  it 
is  fitting  for  the  Scots  diligently  to  celebrate  the  feasts 
and  ecclesiastical  commemorations  (fesfa  simul  et 
inemo7'ias  ecclesiasticas)^  since  he  carefully  and  thoroughly 
instructed  their  nation,  namely  the  Scots,  both  by 
word  and  example  in  the  orthodox  faith,  before  whose 
coming  the  Scots  used  to  have  as  teachers  of  the 
faith  and  ministers  of  the  sacraments  only  Presbyters 
or  monks,  following  the  rite  of  the  early  Church." 
Dr.  Skene's  comment  on  this  passage  is  so  admirably 
lucid  and  cogent,  that  I  cannot  do  better  than  give  it 
in  his  own  words.  "  There  were,  of  course,  no  Scots 
in  Scotland  at  that  time.  But,  by  thus  appropriating 
Palladius,  Fordun  brought  himself  into  a  dilemma. 
According  to  his  fictitious  and  artificial  scheme  of  the 
early  history  of  his  country,  the  Scots  had  colonized 
Scotland  several  centuries  before  Christ,  and  had  been 
converted  to  Christianity  by  Pope  Victor  I.  in  the 
year  203.  But  if  Palladius  was  their  first  bishop  in 
430,  what  sort  of  Church   had   they  between  these 


EARLY    SCOTTISH    CHURCH. 


45 


dates  ?  He  is  therefore  driven  to  the  conclusion  that 
it  must  have  been  a  Church  governed  by  presbyters 
or  nwnks  only.  Hector  Boece  ^  gave  the  name  of 
Culdees  to  the  clergy  of  this  supposed  early  Church ; 
and  thus  arose  the  belief  that  there  had  been  an  early 
Church  of  Presbyterian  Culdees."  - 

In  connection  with  this  passage  of  Fordun,  I  can- 
not but  think  that  it  has  been  too  hastily  assumed 
that  Fordun  regarded  the  want  of  bishops  as  charac- 
teristic of  the  "primitive  Church."  There  seems  to 
me  good  reason  for  believing  that  the  phrase,  "  follow- 
ing the  rite  of  the  primitive  Church,"  has  reference, 
not  to  the  absence  of  bishops,  but  to  the  simplicity  of 
ceremonial  and  ecclesiastical  observance,  which  was 
supposed,  with  good  reason,  to  mark  the  earlier  Scot- 
tish Church.  This  view  of  Fordun's  meaning  is 
supported  by  the  Lessons  for  the  Feast  of  St.  Pal- 
ladius  in  the  Aberdeen  Breviary.  There  we  read 
that  Palladius  appointed  "festivals  and  their  solemn 
observance,"  and  the  becoming  mode  of  celebrat- 
ing and  receiving  the  Sacraments.  He  consecrates 
churches ;  he  gives  ordinances  with  respect  to  ecclesi- 
astical vestments ;  he  orders  the  "  canonical  hours  " 
to  be  said  after  the  Roman  manner.^  We  saw  that 
Fordun  thought  it  worth  while  recording  that  Celes- 

^  In  Latinized  form,  Boethius  :  born  at  Dundee  about  1465  ; 
Professor  of  Philosophy  in  Paris,  1497  ;  published  his  Scotorum 
Histories  (folio,  Paris),  1526  ;  died,  1536. 

-  Celtic  Scotland,  vol.  ii.,  p.  30.  See  also  Historians  of  Scot- 
land, vol,  iv. ,  p.  395.  Some  account  of  the  Culdees  will  be 
found  in  chapter  xii.  of  this  book. 

"  Brev.  Aberdon.  Julii  V. 


46  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

tine,  who  sent  Palladius  "  as  first  bishop  to  the  Scots 
believing  in  Christ,"  had  made  several  ritual  and 
liturgical  changes  in  the  celebration  of  the  Mass. 
With  this  in  his  mind  he  thinks  of  the  probable  want 
of  elaboration  in  the  liturgical  ordinances  of  the 
earlier  Scottish  Church ;  and  the  emphasis  he  places, 
in  connection  with  Palladius,  on  the  duty  of  the  Scots 
observing  "ecclesiastical  festivals  and  commemora- 
tions," confirms  the  view  I  have  here  suggested  as  the 
true  interpretation  of  the  words  "  following  the  rite  of 
the  primitive  Church."  If  the  view  I  have  put  for- 
ward is  correct,  we  find  Fordun  making  two  quite 
distinct  statements  about  the  Christian  Scots  before 
the  coming  of  Palladius.  He  states,  what  he  believed 
to  be  a  fact,  that  they  were  without  bishops,  and  he 
adds  that  their  "rite  " — /.  e.  their  liturgical  observances 
— were  different  from  those  introduced  by  Palladius. 
The  whole  context  must  be  studied  that  we  may 
obtain  the  true  sense  of  the  passage. 

The  names  of  St.  Ternan  and  St.  Serf  are  con- 
stantly associated  in  legendary  history  with  that  of 
St.  Palladius.  Ternan  is  said  to  have  been  instructed 
and  baptized  by  Palladius,  and  consecrated  a  bishop 
among  the  Picts.  In  the  mediaeval  times,  Ternan 
occupied,  beyond  question,  a  place  of  considerable 
importance  in  the  local  religious  conceptions  of  the 
north-east  of  Scotland.  A  bell—"  the  Ronecht  "—said 
to  have  been  given  to  him  by  the  Pope  (who,  through 
a  formidable  anachronism  of  some  200  years,  is  made 
Gregory  the  Great),  and  to  have  followed  him  miracu- 
lously all  the  way  to  Scotland,  was  preserved  till  the 


RELICS    OF    ST.    TERNAN.  47 

Reformation  at  Banchory-Ternan,  and  was  dignified 
by  being  placed  in  the  custody  of  an  hereditary 
keeper,  as  was  not  uncommon  in  the  case  of  other 
sacred  relics  (see  p.  310).  At  Banchory,  too,  were 
preserved  his  head  and  the  St.  Matthew  volume  of 
his  four  Books  of  the  Gospels,  which  were  enclosed 
in  metal  cases  adorned  with  gold  and  silver.  In 
the  treasury  of  the  Church  of  Aberdeen  was  a  mon- 
strance containing  his  relics.  The  Aberdeen  Breviary 
honours  him  with  six  lections,  chiefly  devoted  to  his 
miracles.  Three  or  four  churches  bore  his  name  in 
their  dedications.^  In  default  of  any  secure  footing 
for  reasonable  conjecture  as  to  his  labours,  we  must 
content  ourselves  with  these  indications  that  he  had, 
in  the  region  where  he  laboured,  made  a  deep 
impression  upon  the  popular  mind. 

St.  Serf  presents  a  yet  more  embarrassing  problem 
to  the  critical  inquirer.  Chronological  statements  in 
the  various  legends  are  so  diverse,  that  some  will 
have  it  that  there  were  two  saints  bearing  this  name — 
one  in  the  fifth  and  the  other  in  the  seventh  century. 
For  our  purpose  it  must  suffice  to  say  that,  while  the 
name  of  Ternan  is  chiefly  associated  with  the  north- 
east of  Scotland,  that  of  Serf  or,  in  the  popular 
language,  Sair,  is  connected  with  Fife  and  the  valley 
of  the  Forth.  His  body  was  believed  to  be  deposited 
at  Culross,-  a  village  on  the  northern  shore  of  the 
Firth  of  Forth,  some  eight  or  ten  miles  higher  up 
than    Queensferry,    where    the    stupendous    railway- 

1  See  Bishop  Forbes,  Kalendars  of  Scottish  Saints,  p.  450. 
-  The  name  is  commonly  pronounced  Coo-ross. 


48  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

bridge  now  spans  the  channel.  At  Culross,  the 
Festival  of  the  Saint  was  kept  yearly  on  the  ist  July, 
"  when  the  inhabitants  marched  in  procession,  carry- 
ing green  boughs  "  ;  and,  at  least  as  late  as  1839, 
the  custom  had  not  altogether  disappeared,  though 
by  common  consent  the  ceremonial  was  transferred, 
we  are  told,  by  a  strange  transmutation  of  sentiment, 
to  the  4th  of  June,  in  honour  of  the  birthday  of  King 
George  III.^  The  fame  of  the  saint  certainly  ex- 
tended to  Aberdeenshire,  for  a  yearly  fair,  called  "  St. 
Sair's  Fair,"  was  formerly  held  at  Monkege  (Keith- 
hall),  and  more  lately  at  Culsamond.  He  was  patron- 
saint  of  Creich  and  Dysart  in  Fife,  at  which  latter 
place  there  is  a  cave,  to  which  he  is  said  to  have 
occasionally  retired.^ 

1  Ne-iV  Statistical  Account^  Perth,  p.  6cx).  For  a  Papal 
parallel,  see  p.  291. 

2  Kalendars  of  Scottish  Saints,  p.  447.  See  also  below,  p. 
303.  Skene  {Celtic  Scotland,  vol.  ii.,  p.  32)  refuses  to  acknow- 
ledge any  claim  of  St.  Serf's  belonging  to  the  period  of  St. 
Palladius. 


49 


CHAPTER   IV. 

ST.    MUNGO    (OR    KENTIGERN). 

In  the  early  legendary  records,  three  great  figures 
stand  out  from  the  crowd  of  lesser  men,  all  engaged 
in  the  great  work  of  Christianizing  Scotland— St. 
Ninian,  St.  Mungo,  and  St.  Columba.  Of  the  second 
of  these  we  now  come  to  speak.  Roughly  calculated, 
something  like  a  century— a  century  enveloped  for 
us  in  darkness — intervenes  between  the  labours  of 
Palladius  and  the  labours  of  Mungo. 

There  is  sufficient  evidence  to  show  that  the 
Southern  Picts,  who  had  been  converted  to  the  Chris- 
tian faith  by  Ninian  about  the  beginning  of  the  fifth 
century,  relapsed  in  large  numbers  into  heathenism 
between  the  date  of  the  death  of  their  great  teacher, 
and  the  middle  of  the  sixth  century.  There  is  also 
reason  to  believe  that  the  Britons  of  the  Roman 
province  of  Valentia— that  is,  of  the  country  between 
the  two  great  military  walls — had  fallen  into  de- 
generate ways  and  into  grave  errors  in  faith,  if  they 
did  not,  as  a  body,  actually  apostatize  from  the 
religion  of  Christ.  The  withdrawal  of  the  Romans 
from  Britain  was  the  withdrawal  of  an  influence  that 

D 


50  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

was  protective  of  the  faith.  We  may  be  helped  to 
reahze  the  danger  to  which  the  British  Church  was 
then  exposed  if  we  will  try  to  conceive  how  it  would 
fare  at  the  present  time  with  the  native  churches  in 
Kaffraria,  or  Zululand,  had  the  English  to  retire  from 
South  Africa. 

It  was  the  work  of  St.  Mungo  to  restore  the  lapsed 
and  to  strengthen  the  weak  in  regions  that  included 
the  field  of  St.  Ninian's  labours.  The  scene  of  the 
chief  labours  of  St.  Mungo  was  the  British  kingdom 
of  Strathclyde,  or  Cumbria,  which  reached  from  a 
little  to  the  north  of  its  capital  and  seat  of  govern- 
ment, Dumbarton  (then  known  as  Alclwyd),  down  to 
the  river  Derwent  in  Cumberland,  and  extended 
across  the  island  till  it  was  met  by  the  boundary, 
shifting  and  ill-defined,  of  Bernicia,  the  kingdom  of 
the  Angles.  Of  the  origin  of  this  kingdom  of  Cum- 
bria we  really  know  nothing  for  certain.  When 
thrown  wholly  on  their  own  resources  by  the  entire 
withdrawal  of  the  Romans,  the  Britons  of  the  west 
learned  a  lesson  from  their  eastern  brethren,  who 
found,  too  late,  that  the  help  afforded  by  their  Saxon 
allies  was  a  highly  doubtful  gain.  I  may  mention 
that  it  has  been  supposed  that  the  name  of  the  islands 
of  Cumbrae,  in  the  Clyde,  is  the  linguistic  relic  of  the 
name  of  the  ancient  kingdom.  The  island  of  Bute 
was  in  the  hands  of  the  Scots  from  Ireland.  The 
two  islands  I  have  named  were  in  the  hands  of  the 
Britons  of  Cumbria.  A  few  miles  of  sea  divided 
them.  But  Mungo  is  represented  as  also  labouring, 
for  at  least  a  short  time,  among  the  Southern  Picts, 


BIOGRAPHY    OF    ST.    MUNOO.  5I 

who  inhabited  the  region  between  the  Forth  and  the 
Grampians,  as  well  as  in  the  district  of  Galloway,  the 
special  scenes  of  the  services  of  St.  Ninian  on  behalf 
of  Christ. 

AVhen  we  attempt  to  gain  a  knowledge  of  the  true 
history  of  St.  Mungo,  we  are  met  by  many  difficulties. 
If  we  are  unfortunate  in  Ninian's  biographer,  x-lelred 
of  Rievaulx,  we  are,  it  must  be  acknowledged,  even 
yet  more  unfortunate  in  the  romancer  who  has  given 
us  the  principal  life  of  St.  Kentigern.^  Here,  again, 
in  the  Lije  by  Jocelyn,  we  have  a  life  written  "  to 
order "  many  hundred  years  after  the  death  of  its 
subject.  The  facts  are,  that  Jocelyn,  who  was  Bishop 
of  Glasgow  between  the  years  1174  and  1199,  com- 
missioned a  monk  of  the  great  Cistercian  Abbey  of 
Furness,  in  Lancashire,  who  was  also  Jocelyn  by 
name,  to  write  a  life  of  the  famous  Scottish  saint. 
Bishop  Jocelyn  commenced  the  building  of  the  noble 
cathedral  of  Glasgow,  and  it  was  natural  that  he 
should  desire  to  possess  a  history  of  his  famous  pre- 
decessor, whose  relics  were  to  form  the  chief  glory 
and  treasure  of  the  splendid  structure  he  designed  to 
raise,  and  under  whose  name  it  was  to  be  dedicated. 

^  There  is  a  fragment  of  a  somewhat  earlier  Life  in  the 
British  Museum.  But  it,  like  that  of  Jocelyn,  belongs  to  the 
twelfth  century.  It  professes  to  be  the  work  of  an  ecclesiastic, 
who  styles  himself  "  a  clerk  of  St.  Kentigern,"and  was  written  on 
the  suggestion  of  Bishop  Herbert  of  Glasgow,  who  died  in  1164. 
It  contains  only  what  Bishop  Forbes  styles  "the  weird  legend" 
(though  I  would  prefer  to  speak  of  it  as  the  gross  story  grossly 
told)  of  the  saint's  parentage  and  birth.  It  is  printed  in  the 
Historians  of  Scotland,  vol.  v.,  p.  243,  and  in  the  Kcgistruvi 
Episcopatus  Glasguensis,  vol.  i.,  Ixxviii,  sq. 


52  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

Some  materials,  it  is  true,  existed  for  this  biography, 
but  they  were  scanty ;  and  if  deficiencies  had  to  be 
supplied,  the  monk  of  Furness,  as  the  issue  proved, 
possessed  an  imaginative  inventiveness  that  was  lux- 
uriant in  its  fertility  and  quite  adapted  to  the 
ecclesiastical  taste  of  the  day.  From  the  tissue  of 
monstrous  absurdities,  some  of  them  being,  we  may 
say  with  scarcely  a  doubt,  deliberate  falsifications  with 
an  interested  purpose,  whether  invented  by  Jocelyn 
or  by  an  earlier  writer,  it  is  very  far  from  easy  to 
disentangle  the  threads  of  truth. 

There  has  been  too  ready  a  disposition  on  the  part 
of  even  sober  investigators  to  follow  the  very  easy 
course  of  merely  rejecting  the  miraculous  and  accept- 
ing the  residuum  as  truth.  But  a  narrative  is  not 
necessarily  true  because  it  is  not  palpably  absurd. 
There  is  needed  by  the  critical  historian  in  such 
cases  an  extensive  general  knowledge  of  the  con- 
ditions of  society  at  the  period  with  which  he  is 
concerned.  It  is  also  highly  important  that  he 
should  possess  a  familiarity  with  other  examples  of 
a  like  kind  of  literature;  for  there  is  a  remarkable 
proneness  towards  the  recurrence  of  legendary  types. 
A  story  that  has  proved  entertaining  about  one  saint 
is  pretty  sure  to  be  engrafted  upon  the  life  of  some 
other.  In  this  way  only  can  the  inquirer  secure  in 
any  degree  a  discriminating  tact  for  separating,  with 
some  measure  of  confidence,  the  true  from  the  ficti- 
tious, and  gain  a  due  perception  of  that  which  is  so 
often,  in  these  narrations,  written  between  the  lines. 
I  do  not  myself  pretend  to  the  possession  of  this 


BIRTH    OF    ST.    MUNGO.  53 

subtle  sensibility  and  painfully  acquired  skill ;  but  I 
will  relate  in  outline  what  the  most  competent  his- 
torians of  our  day  are  disposed,  perhaps  with  too 
much  readiness,  to  accept  as  the  true  account  of  vSt. 
Mungo. 

The  mother  of  the  saint  is  represented  as  the 
daughter  of  a  king  in  a  Pictish  district  of  the 
Lothians,  for  the  Picts,  after  the  withdrawal  of  the 
Romans,  had  settled  themselves  in  several  parts  of 
southern  Scotland.  This  king  is  represented  as  a 
Pagan,  or,  as  the  earlier  fragmentary  life  has  it,  a 
"  semi-Pagan."  When  the  time  drew  near  for  the 
birth  of  the  child,  the  princess,  Thenew,  or  Thenog, 
by  name,  and  a  Christian  by  profession,  on  account 
of  charges  made,  rightly  or  wrongly,  against  her 
chastity,  was,  after  previous  dangers  and  sufferings, 
put  alone  into  a  frail  coracle  on  the  shore  at  Aber- 
lady,i  and  pushed  out  to  sea,  that  thus  she  might 
perish.  The  winds  and  tides  bore  her  boat  first 
outside  the  Isle  of  May,  and  then  up  the  Firth  of 
Forth,  past  Inchkeith  and  the  island  which  has 
since  come  to  be  known  as  Inchcolm,  through  the 
narrowing  channel  of  what  was  afterwards  called 
Queensferry,  where  now  the  vast  structure  of  the 
Forth  Bridge  spans  the  estuary,  until  it  was  finally 
stranded  on  the  shore  of  Culross.  Here,  on  landing, 
she  gave  birth  to  a  son ;  and,  according  to  the 
legend  (which  would  seem  to  be  here  guilty  of  an 
anachronism),  St.  Serf,  whose  residence  and  monastic 
school  were  situated  at  this  place,  came  to  the  help 
^  On  the  coast  of  naddingtonshire. 


54  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

of  both  mother  and  child. ^  By  Serf  the  child  was 
given  at  his  baptism  the  name  "  Kentigern  "  (which 
has  been  interpreted  as  "  Chief  Lord  "),  and  after- 
wards the  pet-name  of  "  Munghu,"  or  "  Mungo," 
which  is  variously  explained  as  "  Dearest  Friend,"  or 
"  Dear  and  lovable."  '^  By  Serf  the  boy  is  brought  up 
and  educated.  When  he  reaches  man's  estate,  he 
leaves  his  master,  and,  after  some  wildly  fabulous 
adventures,  he  reaches  Cathures,  now  called  Glasgow, 
where  in  a  former  age  St.  Ninian  had,  according  to 
the  story,  consecrated  a  burial-ground.  Here  he 
took  up  his  abode.  The  fame  of  his  piety  and 
virtues  spreads,  and  at  the  early  age  of  twenty-five 
years  he  is  chosen  as  bishop  by  the  Prince  of 
Strathclyde,  with  his  clergy  and  people.  For  his 
consecration,  it  was  found  easiest  to  bring  a  bishop 
from  Ireland,  and  by  a  single  bishop  he  was  ad- 
vanced to  the  episcopate.  Consecration  by  a  single 
bishop  is  said  to  have  been  at  this  time  the  custom 
of  the  Britons  and  Irish.  In  passing,  I  may  say  that 
consecration  by  a  single  bishop,  though  irregular,  has 
not  been  accounted  by  the  Church  as  invalid ;  and 
examples  of  such  exceptional  acts  are  to  be  found 


^  A  church  in  Glasgow  was  dedicated  to  the  mother  of 
Mungo.  It  is  not  difficult  to  perceive  how  **  Saint  Thenog  " 
became  as  pronounced,  "Saint  Henog "  or  "Saint  Enoch," 
and  the  name  is  still  perpetuated  amid  the  bustle  and  busy  life 
of  the  nineteenth  century  in  "  St.  Enoch's  Railway  Station," 
and  "St.  Enoch's  Hotel." 

-  Skene  [Celtic  Scotland,  vol.  ii.,  p.  183)  says,  "  Cyndeyrn 
and  Munghu  are  pure  Welsh— Cyndeyrn  from  Cyu,  chief ; 
tevm,  lord.     Mwyngu,  from  Mwyu,  amiable  ;  cu,  dear." 


CHURCHES    DEDICATED    TO    ST.    MUNGO.  55 

elsewhere.  A  further  consideration  of  this  question 
will  be  found  at  a  subsequent  page.^ 

We  may  notice  that  the  name  "  Mungo,"  suggested 
by  affection,  holds  its  ground  through  Scotland  at  this 
day  in  preference  to  the  more  dignified  "  Kentigern." 
If  the  tourist  in  Glasgow  in  search  of  the  noble 
cathedral  were  to  ask  in  the  streets  to  be  directed  to 
"  St.  Kentigern's  Cathedral,"  the  chances  are  twenty  to 
one  he  would  get  no  satisfactory  reply,  but  "  Where  is 
St.  Mungo's  ?  "  would  be  at  once  understood.  Indeed, 
it  is  worthy  of  observation  that  not  a  single  church  in 
Scotland  is  dedicated  to  the  saint  under  the  name  of 
Kentigern,  while  we  have  St.  Mungo's  parish  in 
Dumfries,  St.  Mungo's  Chapel  in  Perthshire,  and 
churches  of  St.  Mungo  at  Polwarth,  Penicuik,  Lanark, 
and  other  places. 

At  Glasgow  Mungo  established  a  monastery,  and 
there  he  continued  to  reside  until  he  somehow  in- 
curred the  animosity  of  a  new  king  of  Strathclyde, 
Morken  by  name,  by  whom  he  was  driven  from  his 
home.  He  resolved  to  seek  refuge  among  the 
Christian  Britons  of  Wales ;  and,  on  his  journey 
southwards,  he  is  represented  as  preaching  in  the 
district  around  Carlisle,  where  it  is  interesting  to  find 
at  this  day  no  less  than  nine  churches  dedicated  under 
his  name.  Among  them  is  one  often  visited  by  the 
tourist  to  the  English  Lakes,  the  Church  of  Cross- 
thwaite^  at  Keswick. 

1  See  p.  89. 

-  Where  the  fine  recumbent  monumental  effigy  of  the  poet 
Southey  is  to  be  seen, 


56  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOT-LAND. 

Having  passed  into  Wales,  Mungo  resided  for  a 
time  at  Menevia,  as  the  guest  of  the  Bishop  David 
(Dewi),  afterwards  known  as  the  patron-saint  of  Wales, 
and  founder  of  the  see  that  bears  his  name.  Leaving 
St.  David,  he  founded  a  monastery  at  Llanelwy,  in 
Wales,  on  the  banks  of  another  Clyde.  This  monastery 
became  rapidly  the  resort  of  great  numbers  of  men  of 
all  classes,  rich  and  poor,  high  and  low,  educated  and 
ignorant. 

Another  change  in  the  occupancy  of  the  throne 
of  Strathclyde  brought  Mungo  back  to  Scotland. 
Roderick  (Rydderch),  surnamed  "  the  Bountiful,"  suc- 
ceeded Morken.  The  new  king  had  been  baptized 
and  instructed  in  Ireland,  and  his  sympathies  were 
thoroughly  with  the  Church.  He  sent  a  message  to 
Mungo  requesting  his  return,  and  the  saint  set  forth 
for  the  north  with  many  of  the  brethren  from  the 
convent  at  Llanelwy.^  Before  leaving  Llanelwy 
Mungo  placed  in  charge  his  friend  and  disciple, 
Asaph,  whose  name  has  been  given  to  the  place,  and 
to  the  bishopric  of  St.  Asaph. 

Mungo  was  met  on  his  journey  north  at  Hoddam, 
in  Dumfriesshire,  by  Roderick,  amid  a  scene  of  wonder- 
ful rejoicing,  and  at  Hoddam  he  remained  for  some 
years  before  finally  settling  in  his  former  residence  at 
Glasgow.  If  one  can  give  credence  to  the  speech 
which  Jocelyn  puts  into  the  mouth  of  St.  Mungo  on 
the  occasion  of  his  meeting  King  Roderick,  it  would 

^  The  return  of  Mungo  is  placed  by  Skene  in   or  near  the 
year  573. 


VISIT    OF    ST.    COLUMBA.  57 

seem  that  the  mythology  of  the  neighbouring  Angles 
was  beginning  to  mingle  with  the  native  superstitions 
of  the  Britons  of  these  parts,  and  thus  contributed 
to  further  impede  the  labours  of  the  Christian  ministry. 
Witliout  accepting  literally  Jocelyn's  account  of 
Roderick's  voluntary  subjection  of  himself  and  his 
authority  to  the  Church  (which  seems  to  bear  the 
colour  of  twelfth  century  controversies),  we  can  well 
believe  that  Mungo's  influence  with  the  king  might  be 
practically  boundless. 

After  Mungo's  return  to  Glasgow,  and  in  the  far 
advanced  years  of  his  life,  must  be  placed  his  famous 
meeting  with  Columba. 

The  fame  of  the  missionary  labours  of  each  of  these 
good  men  must  have  been  well  known  to  the  other ; 
and  nothing  could  be  more  natural  than  the  desire  of 
Columba  to  visit  the  bishop,  and  see,  face  to  face,  so 
eminent  and  successful  a  servant  of  his  Lord.  Columba 
is  represented  as'  approaching  Glasgow  with  a  great 
company  of  monks  in  three  ordered  bands.  He  sends 
to  inform  Mungo  of  his  coming.  The  bishop,  also 
accompanied  by  a  crowd  of  ecclesiastics  and  others 
similarly  disposed  in  three  bands,  comes  out  to  meet 
him.  They  draw  near,  both  parties  chanting  aloud 
as  they  come  psalms  and  spiritual  songs.  When 
they  meet  on  the  bank  of  the  Molindinar  burn,  the  two 
servants  of  the  Lord  embrace  and  kiss  one  another. 
The  bishop  receives  his  visitors  with  hospitality,  and 
when  they  are  about  to  depart,  Mungo  and  Columba 
exchange  staves  in  token  of  their  mutual  love  in  Christ. 


58  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

It  was  commonly  believed  in  after  time  (and  there  is 
no  reason  to  question  the  fact)  that  the  staff  given  by 
Columba  to  the  bishop  found  its  way  to  the  Church  of 
St.  Wilfrid  (now  the  Cathedral)  at  Ripon,  where  it 
was  an  object  of  veneration  down  to  the  time  of  the 
Reformation. 


59 


CHAPTER  V. 

THE  HISTORICAL  CHARACTER  OF  THE  DOCUMENTARY 
AUTHORITIES  FOR  THE  LIVES  OF  ST.  NINIAN  AND 
ST.    MUNGO. 

The  histories  of  St.  Ninian  and  St.  Mungo,  as  they 
are  commonly  accepted  by  our  modern  historians, 
have  now  been  related.  But  I  have  already  hinted 
that  perhaps  more  has  been  told  than  is  really 
warranted  by  historical  evidence.  I  am  dissatisfied 
with  that  method  of  dealing  with  the  old  lives  of  the 
saints,  which  consists  of  little  more  than  omitting  the 
miraculous  element  of  the  stories.  And  of  this  dis- 
satisfaction I  am  more  particularly  sensible  when  the 
stories,  as  in  the  case  of  Aelred's  Life  of  St.  Ninian  and 
Jocelyn's  Life  of  St.  Kentigern^  come  to  us  in  their 
present  form  from  writers  who  lived  many  hundred  years 
after  the  events  recorded,  and  who  were  plainly  little  dis- 
posed to,  and  little  qualified  for,  a  critical  investigation 
of  the  material  upon  which  they  worked.  Indeed,  I 
must  confess^that  I  am  not  at  all  satisfied  that  a  good 
part  of  the  stories  told  were  not  deliberate  inventions 
of  these  two  writers. 

Some  forty  or  fifty  years' ago  it  was  the  prevailing 


6o  THE    CELTIC    CHTTRCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

vogue  with  religious  writers  of  a  certain  school  to  ex- 
press, and,  I  doubt  not,  to  cultivate  a  deeply  reverential 
feeling  for  everything  mediaeval.  These  writers  seem 
to  me  to  have  foolishly  slirunk  from  a  free  and  rational 
criticism  of  anything  that  bore  the  stamp  of  what  was 
euphemistically  called  "the  ages  of  faith."  The  late 
Mr.  J.  H.  (since  Cardinal)  Newman's  writings  on 
"  ecclesiastical  miracles  "  exercised  an  influence  upon 
many  who  did  not  follow  the  author  in  his  change  of 
creed  ;  and,  in  my  opinion,  that  influence  was  dis- 
tinctly injurious  to  the  scientific  treatment  of  the  early 
religious  history  of  Britain.  It  may  indeed  be  admitted 
that  it  is  not  a  suflicient  reason  to  refuse  credence  to 
an  alleged  miracle  only  because  it  seems  to  us  trivial, 
grotesque,  or  disproportionate  to  the  occasion.  But, 
lacking  positive  testimony  of  real  and  substantial 
weight  on  their  behalf,  I  do  not  think  it  is  any  indica- 
tion of  an  irreverent  spirit  to  smile  at  what  is  ludicrous 
in  these  stories,  and  to  be  sceptical  of  what  is,  at  least 
prima  facie^  absurd. 

It  is  well,  perhaps,  that  at  this  point  we  should  make 
acquaintance  with  some  specimens  of  the  histories  from 
which  we  have  derived  the  particulars  that  have  been 
recorded.  And  it  is  right  to  add  that  the  prodigious 
is  not  a  mere  occasional  and  passing  feature,  but  gives 
a  general  colour  to  the  whole. 

And  first,  to  consider  Aelred's  Life  of  St.  Ninian. 
The  three  opening  chapters  are  little  more  than  an 
enlargement  of  the  passage  from  Bede  which  is  cited 
by  rur  author  in  his  preface,  and  which,  though  con- 
sisting of  only  a  few  lines,  may  be  regarded  as  of  more 


MISSION    TO    SOUTHERN    PICTS.  01 

value  than  all  the  subsequent  marvels.^  It  is  intro- 
duced after  a  mention  of  Columba's  mission  to  the 
Northern  Picts,  and  as  cited  by  Aelred,  runs  as 
follows  :  "  The  Southern  Picts  who  dwell  among  the 
same  mountains  had  long  before  abandoned  the  error 
of  idolatry,  and  received  the  true  faith  on  the  preaching 
of  the  word  to  tliem  by  Bishop  Nynia,  a  most  reverend 
and  most  holy  man,  a  Briton  by  race,  who  at  Rome 
had  been  regularly  instructed  in  the  faith  and  mysteries 
of  the  truth  ;  the  seat  of  whose  episcopate,  dedicated 
under  the  name  of  St.  Martin,  Bishop,  and  a  famous 
church  (where  he  rests  in  the  body  with  many  saints), 
the  nation  of  the  Angles  at  the  present  time  possesseth. 
This  place  is  commonly  called  Candida  Casa,  because 
there  he  built  a  church  of  stone  in  a  manner  unusual 
among  the  Britons  {insolito  B^-etonibus  more).'"  In 
Chapter  IV.  we  read  how  King  Tuduvallus  was  cured 
of  an  intolerable  disease  in  the  head  and  of  bUndness 
by  the  touch  of  the  saint  and  the  sign  of  the  cross. 
The  next  chapter  relates  how  a  priest,  falsely  accused 
of  unchastity,  was  triumphantly  vindicated  in  church 
before  a  great  gathering  of  clergy  and  people  by  an 
infant  of  one  day  old.  The  new-born  babe,  when 
adjured  by  the  saint,  stretched  forth  his  hand,  and 
pointing  to  his  real  father,  exclaimed  in  a  manly  voice 
{j'ox  virilis),  "  That  is  my  father ;  your  priest,  O  bishop, 
is  innocent,  and  there  is  naught  between  him  and 
me  but  participation  in  that  human  nature  which  is 
common  to  us  both."  I  think  there  is  something 
more  portentous  in  the  acquaintance  of  the  infant  with 
^  The  passage  occurs  in  the  Ecclesiastical  Hislory  (lib,  iii.  c.  4). 


62  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

the  metaphysics  involved  in  the  conception  of  our 
common  human  nature  than  in  the  "manly  voice," 
which  has  suggested  to  the  sceptical  a  suspicion  of 
saintly  ventriloquism.  This  is  a  story,  we  may  observe 
in  passing,  which  is  told,  with  modifications,  of  various 
saints  in  different  countries.  A  study  of  comparative 
Christian  mythology  shows  us  that  it  was  a  favourite. 
Chapter  VI.  is  an  amplification  of  the  fact  that  Ninian 
laboured  among  the  Southern  Picts  as  missionary  and 
bishop.  In  Chapter  VII.  we  are  told  how  leeks,  which 
the  gardener  had  just  planted,  v/ere  found  full-grown 
and  in  seed  when  the  saint  required  them  for  the  re- 
fectory table.  It  is  added,  "the  guests  looked  at  one 
another";  and  well  they  might.  In  Chapter  VIII. 
it  is  related  how  the  saint  would  protect  his  cattle  by 
drawing  a  circle  round  them  on  the  ground  with  his 
staff,  how  robbers  dared  to  penetrate  inside  the 
enclosure  thus  formed,  how  one  of  them  was  gored  to 
death  by  the  saint's  bull,  and  afterwards  raised  to 
life,  admonished,  and  forgiven.  Meanwhile,  the  other 
thieves  do  not  seem  to  have  been  able  to  escape  out- 
side the  magic  circle.  Chapter  IX.  tells  a  story  that 
has  obtained  currency,  I  fancy,  because  of  its  pictur- 
esqueness,  and  what  is  supposed  to  be  its  "  edifying  " 
character;  how  the  saint,  saying  his  Psalter  in  the 
open  air,  was  surrounded  by  an  invisible  canopy  im- 
penetrable by  the  rain  which  fell  around,  save  once, 
apparently,  when  a  wandering  and  idle  thought  for  one 
moment  crossed  his  mind,  whereupon  the  shower  wet 
both  him  and  his  book,  and  recalled  him  to  his  duty. 
But  in  Chapter  X.  we  have,  as  our  author  says,  "  miracle 


ST.  ninian's  miraculous  powers.  63 

added  to  miracle."  A  youth  belonging  to  the  saint's 
school,  desiring  to  escape  a  punishment  about  to  be 
inflicted  on  him,  ran  away,  carrying  off  St.  Ninian's 
staff.  In  his  terror  he  incautiously  put  out  to  sea  in 
a  wicker-framed  coracle,  over  which  the  hide  had  not 
been  drawn.  After  a  little  the  water  came  pouring 
in,  and  with  pale  countenance  he  beheld  the  waves 
ready  to  avenge  the  injury  done  to  his  master.  When 
at  length  coming  to  himself,  and  believing  that  St. 
Ninian  "  was  present  in  his  staff,"  he  besought  him  by 
his  most  holy  merits  that  aid  might  come  to  him  from 
God.  He  then  stuck  the  staff  into  one  of  the  holes, 
and  this  took  place  that  posterity  might  understand 
what  St.  Ninian  could  do  even  on  the  sea.  *'  On  the 
touch  of  the  staff  the  element  trembled,  and  did  not 
presume  to  enter  further  through  the  open  holes."  To 
be  brief,  the  youth  landed  safely  and  planted  the  staff 
on  the  shore,  where  the  dry  wood  took  root  and  bore 
branches  and  leaves  ;  and  at  the  root  of  the  tree  a 
most  limpid  fountain  springing  up,  sent  forth  a  crystal 
stream  delightful  to  the  eye,  sweet  to  the  taste,  etc. 
Chapter  XI.  consists  in  an  eulogy  on  the  saint,  and 
relates  his  burial  in  a  stone  coffin  near  the  altar ;  while 
Chapter  XII.  concludes  the  book  with  relation  of 
certain  miracles  wrought  by  his  relics. 

After  the  perusal  of  this  record  of  marvels,  those 
who  have  acquired  experience  in  such  studies  will,  I 
believe,  not  hesitate  to  declare  that  these  are  for  the 
most  part  not  the  mere  outcome  of  the  misunder- 
standings of  a  credulous  age,  but  in  great  part,  at  all 
events,  the  deliberate  concoctions  of  a  dull  romancer. 


64  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

Of  course  we  are  well  aware  that  even  our  most  trusted 
sources  of  information  on  the  history  of  the  Church 
at  certain  i)eriods  contain  narratives  of  supernatural 
occurrences  that  are  scarcely  likely  to  commend  them- 
selves as  strictly  representing  actual  facts,  when 
weighed  by  the  modern  historian,  who  comes  un- 
trammelled to  the  investigation.  But  from  among  the 
general  body  of  ecclesiastical  documents  of  the  middle 
ages,  an  acquired  tact  will  enable  us  to  make  a  dis- 
tinction between  miracles  and  miracles,  and  to  dis- 
criminate, often  with  a  high  measure  of  probability, 
between,  on  the  one  hand,  the  narration  of  the  careful 
writer  who  recorded  what,  on  some  fair  show  of 
evidence,  he  rightly  or  wrongly  believed  to  be  true, 
and,  on  the  other,  the  wild  romancing  of  a  professional 
miracle-monger.  In  the  former  class  we  are  very 
frequently  rewarded  by  a  sense  of  contact,  at  many 
points,  with  reality  ;  in  the  latter,  we  find  abounding 
the  unmistakable  flavour  of  the  unscrupulous  story- 
teller. We  are  in  a  different  world  when  we  pass  from 
Bede's  narratives  of  the  supernatural  to  the  succes- 
sion of  astounding  prodigies  related  by  Jocelyn  of 
Furness.i 

It  would  be  wearisome  were  I  to  deal  with  the  Life 
of  St.  Kentigern  chapter  by  chapter.  One's  appetite 
for  the  marvellous  is  quickly  satiated.  And  while  an 
occasional  prodigy  may  enliven  a  story,  my  experience 
is  that  reading  a  rapid  succession  of  them  is  as  dull 

^  Trobleins  of  a  special  kind  are  presented  by  Adamnan's  Life 
of  St.  Coluinba,  and  they  will  be  considered  separately  when  the 
history  of  the  Irish  mission  is  dealt  with. 


I 


STORIES    OF   ST.    ]\rUXGO.  65 

work  as  the  systematic  perusal  of  a  jest-book.  Never- 
theless, I  would  fain  convey  some  taste  of  the  flavour 
of  Jocelyn's  confections.  Well,  then,  when  Kentigern 
as  a  boy  was  under  the  instruction  of  St.  Serf  at 
Culross,  some  of  his  youthful  school-fellows  in  their 
rough  play  pulled  the  head  off  a  pet  redbreast  of  the 
master,  and  then  sought  to  lay  the  blame  on  Kenti- 
gern ;  but  he  placed  the  bird's  head  upon  its  body, 
and  signed  it  with  the  sign  of  the  cross,  when  away  it 
flew.  On  another  occasion,  wliile  still  under  the 
tuition  of  St.  Serf,  it  was  Kentigern's  duty  to  light  the 
lamps  of  the  church,  but  no  fire  could  be  found. 
Whereupon  Kentigern  took  a  bough  of  a  growing 
hazel-tree,  and  when  he  had  signed  it  and  blessed  it 
in  tlie  name  of  the  Trinity,  fire  fell  from  heaven  and 
kindled  the  bough,  which,  like  Moses'  bush,  burned 
but  was  not  consumed.  The  bird  and  the  tree  that 
figure  heraldically  in  the  arms  of  the  city  of  Glasgow 
were  suggested  by  these  legends;  while  the  salmon 
with  the  ring  in  its  mouth  that  is  represented  on  the 
dexter  side  of  the  shield  is  supposed  to  be  a  memorial 
of  a  less  edifying  story  of  Jocelyn's,  in  which  we  are 
told  how  a  certain  queen,  Languoreth  by  name,  who 
had  been  an  unfaithful  wife,  is  able,  through  the  miracu- 
lous aid  afforded  by  the  saint,  to  pose  successfully 
before  her  husband  as  a  slandered  and  innocent 
woman.  But  I  do  not  know  that  any  of  the  stories 
takes  my  fancy  more  than  that  of  the  saint's  ram, 
which  ran  faster  after  its  head  was  cut  off  than  it  did 
before  it  was  slaughtered ;  while  the  head,  turned  into 
stone,  remains  at  Glasgow  "  even  unto  this  day,"  writes 

E 


66  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

Jocelyn,  "  as  a  proof  of  the  miracle,  and,  though  silent, 
declares  the  merit  of  St.  Kentigern."  ^  The  titles  of 
chapters  were  doubtless  intended  not  only  to  sum- 
marize the  contents,  but  also  to  whet  the  curiosity  of 
the  reader.  Some  of  these  are  as  follows :  "  How 
Saint  Kentigern  placed  in  the  plougli  under  one  yoke 
a  stag  and  a  wolf,  and  how,  sowing  sand,  he  reaped 
wheat ";  -  "  Concerning  a  cook  raised  from  the  dead 
by  the  prayers  of  St.  Kentigern  " ;  "  How  a  jester, 
despising  the  gifts  of  the  king,  demanded  a  dish  of 
fresh  mulberries  after  Christmas,  and  how,  through  St, 
Kentigern,  he  received  them  "  ;  "  Concerning  two 
vessels  full  of  milk  sent  by  St.  Kentigern  to  a  certain 
craftsman,  and  how  the  milk  was  spilled  into  the  river 
and  became  cheese  "  ;  "  How  the  Kord  protected  the 
saint's  garments  from  being  wet  by  the  smallest  drop 
of  rain,  snow,  or  hail."  All  these,  and  many  more,  are 
entertaining  stories,  if  one  does  not  indulge  in  too 
many  of  them  at  a  time;  and,  to  do  him  justice, 
Jocelyn  does  his  best  to  draw  a  moral  from  each. 

From  a  biography  such  as  Jocelyn's  it  is  a  task  of 
the  greatest  difficulty,  if  indeed  it  be  not  an  absolute 
impossibility,  to  extract  historical  material  as  to  which 
we  can  feel  complete  confidence.    We  may  be  able  to 

^  The  story  of  the  ring  and  the  salmon  may  be  briefly  told. 
The  king  finds  on  the  finger  of  one  of  his  knights,  who  was  asleeji, 
a  ring  given  l)y  the  king  to  his  fiueen  ;  he  throws  it  into  the 
Clyde,  and  then  asks  the  queen  to  show  him  the  ring  ;  the  queen, 
in  her  distress,  asks  the  aid  of  the  saint,  at  whose  command  a 
salmon  is  cauglit  in  the  river,  and  the  ring  is  found  in  the  body 
of  the  fish  and  given  to  the  queen. 

-  The  same  marvel  is  told  of  St.  Ternan  in  the  Aberdeen 
Breviary,  pars  hyem.,  fol.  Iv. 


GREAT    AGE    OF    ST.    IMUNGO.  67 

say  of  one  incident  perhaps,  "  This  may  well  have 
been ;  it  falls  in  with  what  we  learn  elsewhere  "  ;  or 
of  another,  "  It  possesses  more  of  local  colour  than  we 
can  readily  attribute  to  an  inventor";  but  beyond 
this  we  feel  that  our  footsteps  are  on  very  uncertain 
ground. 

Jocelyn  tells  us  that  Kentigern,  "  matured  in  merit," 
died  at  the  age  of  185.  After  what  we  have  seen  of 
the  character  of  Jocelyn's  romancing,  is  it  really 
worth  while  to  adduce  in  relation  to  this  statement 
(as  is  done  by  the  acute  and  learned  Dr.  A.  P.  Forbes, 
late  Bishop  of  Brechin)  examples  of  great  longevity, 
such  as  that  of  the  famous  Countess  of  Desmond, 
*'  Old  Parr,"  and  some  instances  referred  to  by  tlie 
physiologist  Haller,  all  of  which  come  to  us  on 
evidence  that  at  least  deserves  consideration  ?  It 
seems  to  me  a  remarkable  example  of  how  the  judg- 
ment of  an  able,  learned,  and  cultivated  man  may  be 
warped  by  a  "tendency,"  in  this  instance  (as  I  take 
it),  a  misplaced  reverence  for  what  is  certainly  ancient 
and  had  a  show  of  piety.  "Temperance,"  writes 
Bishop  Forbes,  "  sweet  temper,  and  faith  tend  to  length 
of  days  ; "  and,  as  Bishop  Forbes  is  plainly  not  indis- 
posed to  believe  many  of  the  alleged  miracles,  he 
might  well  have  added  that  in  the  moist  climate  of 
the  west  of  Scotland,  and  before  another  Scotchman 
had  invented  the  "  mackintosh,"  it  must  have  been  of 
immense  hygienic  value  never  to  have  worn  wet 
clothes.  For  here  Jocelyn  is  very  express  :  "  All  bear 
witness  who  knew  the  man,  as  well  as  those  that  con- 
versed with  him,  that  never  in  his  life  were  his  clothes 


68  THE    CFJ.TIC   CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

wetted  with  the  drops  of  pouring  rain,  snow,  or  hail, 
dropping  upon  the  earth.  For  many  a  time  placed  in 
the  open  air  while  the  inclemency  of  the  weather 
increased,  while  the  pouring  rain  flowed  along  like  a 
sewer,  and  the  spirit  of  the  storm  raged  around  him, 
he  stood  immovable,  or  went  where  he  wished,  and 
always  continued  untouched  and  uninjured  by  a  drop 
of  any  kind."  ^  In  the  region  of  ecclesiastical  no  less 
than  of  civil  history,  our  first  thoughts  should  ever  be 
not  of  what  is  "  edifying  "  or  what  is  "  pious,"  but  of 
what  is  true.  To  the  kind  of  criticism  indicated  above, 
there  can  be  no  question  of  the  superiority  of  the 
critical  spirit  shown  by  the  Bollandists,  who  in  many 
instances  apply  what  I  shall  venture  to  call  the  "  canon 
of  common-sense  "  as  trenchantly  as  the  most  scep- 
tical of  modern  inquirers.  Again,  in  our  own  day, 
an  Irish  scholar  of  distinction,^  who  certainly  cannot 
be  justly  accused  of  a  tendency  to  unreasonable  in- 
credulity, does  not  scruple  to  test  some  of  the 
legendary  histories  of  Irish  saints  (though  perhaps 
with  some  incDnsistency  of  application)  by  ordinary 
common-sense  considerations  applicable  to  the  events 
of  every-day  life.      Thus  the  St.  Ninian  of  Scotland 

^  Bishop  Forbes,  in  the  end  of  his  discussion  {Historians  of 
Scotland,  vol.  vi.,  p.  369),  asserts  that  "  the  difficulty  in  the  case  of 
St.  Kentigern  arises  from  clironological  considerations,"  and  cites 
an  admirable  passage  from  Mr.  Skene,  who  shows  that  '"if  you 
deduct  the  100  (/.  e.  from  1S5),  you  will  bring  out  a  chronology 
very  consistent  with  other  events."  Exactly  so;  7/' you  deduct 
100,  which  would  bring  the  age  of  St.  Kentigern  to  the  not  very 
unusual  85  years. 

-  Dr.  John  Healy  (Roman  Catliolic),  Coadjutor  Bishop  of 
C I  on  far  t. 


EXTRAORDINARY    LONGEVITY.  69 

appears  in  Ireland  (with  the  common  honorific  prefix 
/;/<?i)  as  St.  Mo-nenn.  In  former  times  there  was  a 
disposition  to  identify  St.  Moinenn  of  Clonfert  with 
St.  Ninian  or  Mo-nenn  of  Candida  Casa,  but  the 
critic  to  whom  I  refer  declares  such  an  identification 
to  be  "manifestly  out  of  the  question,"  as  it  would 
have  made  St.  Ninian  of  Candida  Casa  *'at  least  200 
years  of  age."  -  The  disposition  to  dignify  the  Celtic 
saints  with  extraordinary  longevity  is  common  among 
the  Irish  hagiographers.  Thus  St.  Ultan  of  Ard- 
braccan  dies,  according  to  the  Marty rology  of  Donegal^ 
at  the  age  of  189.  The  authors  of  the  lives  of  St.  Ciaran, 
St.  Declan,  and  St.  Ailbe  give  to  these  saints  lives 
extending  from  200  to  300  and  even  400 years;  while, 
according  to  a  writer  who  scorns  round  numbers  and  will 
be  accurately  precise,  St.  Ibar  died  at  the  age  of  353.^ 
We  have  already  hinted  that  for  dealing  with  the 
legendary  lives  of  the  saints  a  valuable  qualification 
would  be  extensive  reading  in  hagiological  literature 
generally.  If  the  student  confines  himself  to  only 
one  or  two  documents,  he  will,  I  think,  spend  more 
time  and  take  more  trouble  in  sifting  some  marvellous 
tale,  and  labouring  to  find  what  he  might  imagine  to 
be  the  nucleus  of  truth  contained  in  it,  than  he  will 
feel  himself  justified  in  doing  if  he  finds  the  same 
starding  and  effective  story  appearing  again  and  again 


^  Mo  =  '  ■'  my, "  a  term  of  endearment . 

-  Insula  Sanctoriiiii  ct  Doctoniiii ;  oi\  In'/aiiirs  Ancient 
Schools  and  Scholars,  by  the  INIost  Reverend  John  Healy,  D.D., 
etc.,  p.  223. 

^  See  Bishop  liealy's  Insula  Sanctorum,  etc.,  pp.   136-7. 


70  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

ill  various  lives  with  or  without  modification.  Indeed, 
quite  independently  of  any  search  for  biographical 
facts,  the  examination  of  such  materials  for  a  com- 
parative Christian  mythology  as  are  supplied,  for 
instance,  in  the  long  row  of  great  folios  that  make 
the  Alfa  Sajictoruin  of  the  Bollandists,  would  form  a 
study  entirely  worthy  of  the  scientific  inquirer.  The 
task  would  doubtless  necessitate  the  expenditure  of 
much  time  and  trouble ;  and  probably  we  shall  have 
to  wait  till  some  patient  German  of  large  erudition 
and  indomitable  perseverance  undertakes  it.  I  may 
illustrate  what  I  am  thinking  of  by  one  or  two  ex- 
amples. We  have  seen  already  how  St.  Kentigern, 
while  still  a  youtli,  is  greatly  embarrassed  for  the  want 
of  fire,  which  had  been  extinguished  throughout  the 
monastery  of  St.  Serf;  he  takes  a  branch  of  a  green 
hazel-tree,  breathes  upon  it,  signs  with  the  sign  of  the 
cross  in  the  Name  of  the  Trinity,  and  it  immediately 
bursts  into  flame.  Now  this  same  Jocelyn,  who  so 
well  hit  off  the  prevailing  taste,  was  requested  by  the 
Irish  Archbishop  of  Armagh  and  the  Bishop  of  Down 
to  write  a  life  of  St.  Patrick,  and  here  we  find  St. 
Patrick,  while  still  a  child,  miraculously  making  a 
good  fire,  not  this  time  with  green  hazel  branches, 
but  with  a  lapful  of  icicles,  which,  similarly,  he 
breathes  upon  and  signs  with  the  cross.  Again,  St. 
Mungo  has  the  dead  body  of  Fergus,  *'a  man  of  God," 
placed  in  a  wain  drawn  by  "two  untamed  bulls," 
which  move  to  the  appointed  burying-place.  This 
miracle,  we  are  told,^  was  repeated  in  the  cases  of 

^  Historians  of  Scotland ,  vol.  v.,  Notes,  p.  329. 


EARLY    LEGENDS.  7t 

several  other  saints,  who  are  named  as  St.  Fursey, 
St.  Florentinus,  St.  Tressanus,  St.  Joava,  St.  Fachult, 
and  St.  Patrick.  In  the  case  of  St.  Gall,  the  story  is 
varied ;  unbridled  horses  take  the  place  of  oxen  or 
bulls. ^  We  have  noticed  in  the  Life  of  St.  Niniaii 
how  the  saint  cleared  a  priest  of  false  accusation  by 
the  voice  of  a  new-born  child.  St.  Aldhelm,  the 
Saxon  scholar  of  the  seventh  century,  in  a  similar 
manner,  when  at  Rome,  extracts  a  declaration  from  a 
child  nine  days  old  which  cleared  the  credit  of  Pope 
Sergius  I.  St.  Brigid  of  Kildare,  by  a  like  adjura- 
tion, proves  the  innocence  of  a  bishop;  and  this  story 
appears  in  one  of  the  Lessons  on  the  festival  of  that 
saint  in  the  Aberdeen  Breviary.'^  A  similar  story  is 
told  in  the  mediaeval  Lectionary  of  the  Church  of 
England  of  St.  Britius,  whose  name  still  appears  in 
the  calendar  of  our  Prayer-Book  at  November  13,^ 
with  the  slight  variation  that  the  saint  himself  is  the 
accused  and  the  child  is  a  month  old.  Nor  does  even 
this  instance  exhaust  all  the  parallels. 

One  other  illustration  may  be  offered  of  this 
tendency  to  the  recurrence  of  certain  striking  stories. 
There  may  be  differences  of  opinion  as  to  the  date 
when  St.  Baldred  flourished,  but  we  need  have  no  doubt 
that  a  hermit  of  that  name  took  up  his  abode  upon 
the  Bass- rock,  which  forms  so  remarkable  an  object  at 

^  I  have  not  gone  to  the  trouble  of  discovering  who  is  meant 
by  St.  JO'^^va,  l)ut  I  am  sure  the  story  is  as  true  of  him  or  her  as 
it  is  of  the  others  better  known. 

-  Pars  hyem.,  fol.  xlvi. 

"^  See  Saruiit  Breviary  (edit.  Procter  and  Wordsworth),  Fascic. 


72  THE   CELTIC   CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

the  mouth  of  the  estuary  of  the  Forth,  and  that  he 
laboured  in  good  works  among  the  people  of  the 
neighbouring  parts  of  Lothian.  He  taught  the  faith, 
we  are  told,  in  three  churches  of  that  region — Ald- 
hame,  Tynynghame,  and  Preston.  On  the  death  of 
the  saint  there  Avas  an  eager  contention  which  of 
these  churches  should  have  the  honour  of  possessing 
his  body.  Prayer  was  made  that  a  sign  from  heaven 
might  be  given  to  settle  the  question  in  debate ;  and, 
lo,  on  the  morrow,  three  bodies  were  found  exactly 
alike,  each  laid  out  "with  the  same  exequial  pomp," 
and  each  congregation  carried  off  one,  which  was 
ever  after  held  in  the  greatest  reverence.^  Bishop 
Forbes  has  pointed  out  a  parallel  to  the  triplication 
of  the  saint's  body  in  the  case  of  the  great  Welsh 
saint,  St.  Teilo ;  while  two  bodies  are  produced  in  a 
legend  of  St.  Patrick  and  in  a  legend  of  St.  iNIonnena.- 

Valueless,  or  worse  than  valueless,  as  these  stories 
may  appear  to  us,  it  is  the  part  of  the  historian  to 
remember  that  in  former  times  such  narratives  entered 
largely  into  the  religious  beliefs  and  largely  affected 
the  religious  sentiments  of  both  clergy  and  people. 
None  of  them  were  too  absurd  to  be  read  in  the 
appointed  Lessons  of  the  Church,"'  and  they  possessed 
all  the  qualifications  for  im|)re3sing  and  holding  the 
imagination  of  a  credulous  and  ignorant  people. 

It  is  worthy  of  mention  tliat  as  late  as  the  sixteenth 

'    Sec  I'orbes"  Kalcndars  of  Scollish  Saints,  }).  274. 
-  Smith  and  Wace,  Did.  of  C/ir.  Bioi^.,  s.v.  Baldred. 
^  The  story  of  tlie  multiplication  of  St.  ]]aldrcd's  body  will  be 
found  in  the  Aberdeen  Breviary,  pars  hyeni.,  fol.  Ixiii.,  sq. 


ALLEGED    MIRACLES.  73 

century  the  story  of  the  tripHcation  of  St.  Baldred's 
body  appears  in  one  of  the  philosophic  writings  of  an 
eminent  Scottish  theologian,  John  Major,  or  Mair, 
who,  after  studying  at  Cambridge,  became  famous  at 
Paris  as  a  lecturer  on  Theology  at  the  Sorbonne.^  In 
his  commentary  upon  the  Fourth  Book  of  the  Se?i- 
icnces  of  Peter  Lombard,  a  recognized  text-book  of 
the  theological  schools,  Major,  when  treating  of  the 
Holy  Eucharist,  argues  from  the  story  of  the  body  of 
St.  Baldred  that  it  is  possible  with  God  "  that  the 
same  body  can  be  placed  circumscriptive  in  different 
places  at  the  same  time."- 

Once  more  ;  in  examining  the  ancient  documents 
which  are  concerned  with  the  lives  of  the  saints,  the 
critic  is  bound  to  take  into  consideration  moral 
improbabilities^  and  what  I  may  call  miracles  in  the 
moral  and  spiritual  ivorld,  as  well  as  miracles  in  the 
physical  world.  The  cases  where  real  discrimination 
and  the  exercise  of  sound  judgment  are  needed  (and 
such  are  very  numerous)  are,  of  course,  very  different 
from  cases  involving  palpable  absurdities  like  the 
following,  which  I  adduce  as  affording  illustrations, 

^  In  151S  Major  was  induced  to  leave  Paris  for  Glasgow, 
where  he  was  made  Principal  Regent  of  the  College,  and  con- 
tinued to  reside  for  five  years.  John  Knox,  the  leader  of  the 
Scottish  Reformation,  was  matriculated  at  Glasgow  while  Major 
was  in  office  ;  and  Dr.  -Eneas  J,  G.  Mackay — in  his  scholarly 
life  of  Major,  prefixed  to  the  translation  of  Major's  Hisioria 
Majoris  Brifaiiiiia-,  printed  by  the  Scottish  History  Society 
(1892) — conjectures  that  the  fame  of  Major  may  have  been  the 
cause  of  Knox  going  to  Glasgow  rather  than  to  St.  Andrews. 

-  See  A  History  of  Greater  Britain  (1S92),  p.  87,  note. 


74  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

on  a  magnified  scale,  that  will  carry  conviction  even 
to  the  least  suspicious  of  those  addicted  to  hagiological 
literature.  In  a  manuscript  Life  of  St.  Serf,  preserved 
in  Archbishop  Marsh's  library  in  Dublin,  which 
has  been  printed  in  the  Appendix  to  Dr.  Skene's 
Chronicles  of  the  Fids  and  Scots  (pp.  412 — 423), 
we  read  how  St.  Serf  was  first  Patriarch  of  Jerusalem 
for  seven  years,  then  Pope  of  Rome  for  seven  years, 
and  finally  settled  himself  at  the  village  of  Culross  on 
the  northern  shore  of  the  Forth.  Now,  even  if  the 
records  of  the  episcopal  succession  at  Jerusalem  and 
at  Rome  were  more  patent  than  they  are  of  this 
startling  allegation,  it  will  be  admitted  that,  to  say  the 
least,  this  is  a  highly  improbable  story.  For  myself, 
I  could  quite  as  easily  credit  that  St.  Serf,  as  we  read 
in  the  same  narrative,  was  miraculously  born  to  his 
parents,  Obeth,  King  of  Canaan,  and  his  wife  Alpia, 
daughter  of  the  King  of  Arabia,  that  on  his  way 
from  Canaan  to  Jerusalem  he  crossed  the  Red  Sea, 
like  Moses,  on  dry  ground,  and  that  an  angel  cut  for 
him  a  staff  of  the  w^ood  of  the  tree  from  which  the 
Cross  of  Christ  had  been  made.  Again,  when  St. 
Serf,  having  surrendered  the  throne  of  St.  Peter  at 
Rome,  despite  the  expostulations  of  the  whole  people, 
had  advanced  to  the  coast  of  France,  he  crossed  the 
sea  to  England  on  dry  ground,  with  7,000,000  com- 
l)anions  of  his   pilgrimage.^      This  large  number  of 

^  After  reading  this  narrative,  it  will  not  surprise  the  reader  to 
learn  that  St.  Adrian,  who  is  also  of  royal  descent,  should  come 
from  Hungary  to  labour  among  the  Picts,  accompanied  by  6606 
companions,  who  were  all  martyred  by  the  Danes.  {Aberdeen, 
Breviary^  pars  hyem.,   fol.  Ixii. ) 


LEGENDS    OF    ST.    SERF.  75 

fellow-travellers  is  doubtless  a  little  surprising ;  but  we 
cannot  assert  that  it  involves  a  suspension  of  the 
physical  laws  of  nature.^  Is  it,  however,  more  prob- 
able than  their  mode  of  crossing  the  channel  ?  We 
certainly  cannot  wonder  that  when  St.  Serf  met  St. 
Edheunanus  at  the  island  of  Inchkeith,  after  they  had 
spent  a  great  part  of  the  night  in  secret  converse,  he 
should  put  to  his  friend  the  awkward  question,  "  How 
am  I  to  dispose  of  my  family  and  companions  ? " 
After  these  things  the  reader  becomes  impatient  of 
the  subsequent  stories  of  his  healing  the  blind,  raising 
the  dead,  and  other  such  commonplaces.  A  brief 
stimulant  to  our  jaded  sense  of  wonder  is  supplied  by 
the  narrative  of  how  the  saint  cured  a  man  afflicted 
with  an  insatiable  appetite  by  thrusting  his  thumb 
into  the  patient's  mouth,  and  so  expelling  a  devil  by 
whom  he  had  been  possessed  ;  of  how  a  pig  which 
a  poor  man  had  killed  for  the  saint's  supper  was 
found  next  morning  safe  and  sound ;  and  lastly,  of 
how  a  sheep-stealer,  who  was  declaring  his  innocence 
by  oath  on  the  saint's  wonder-working  staff,  was 
painfully  convicted  by  the  animal  bleating  inside  the 
culprit. - 

^  The  text  of  the  MS.,  as  printed  in  the  Chronicles  of  the 
Picts  and  Scots,  reads  ciun  septan  niilibus  niilhmi.  Skene 
{Celtic  Scotland,  vol.  ii.,  p.  256)  seems  to  take  milium  as  an  error 
for  militnm,  and  to  understand  the  word  as  meaning  monks. 
V>\\\.  the  story  is  too  absurd  to  be  improved  by  the  conjectures  of 
the  textual  critic.  The  word  miles,  it  may  be  added,  needs  some 
such  addition  as  Dei  or  Christi  to  signify  a  monk. 

-  Archbishop  Usher  was  acquainted  with  this  Life  of  St.  Ser- 
vanus,  and  describes  it  as  "  packed  with  the  most  stupid  lies" — 
a  verdict  that  will  probably  be  assented  to  by  all   {Brit.  Eccl. 


76  THE   CELTIC   CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

The  extravagances  and  absurdities  of  many  of 
the  lives  of  the  saints  of  the  ancient  Scottish,  Irish, 
and  British  Churches  were  distinctly  recognized  in 
the  seventeenth  century  by  one  who  may  justly  be 
reckoned  as  in  the  very  first  rank  of  authorities  on 
hagiological  literature,  the  learned  Jesuit,  John  Bol- 
landus  (1596 — 1665),  who  initiated  the  vast  design 
that  has  resulted  in  the  long  series  of  the  Acta  Sanc- 
tormn^  volume  after  volume  of  which  has  been 
appearing,  at  varying  intervals,  from  1643  up  to  our 
own  day.  The  attitude  of  the  Church  of  which  he 
was  a  member  towards  the  miraculous  scarcely  per- 
mitted him  that  freedom  of  critical  investigation 
which  is  open  to  others  ;  and  he  himself  was  cer- 
tainly by  no  means  over-sceptical.  But  he  was  plainly 
somewhat  staggered  by  the  records  of  our  national 
hagiolog}'.  He  in  a  marked  way  particularizes  in 
this  connection  the  lives  of  the  saints  of  Ireland, 
Scotland,  and  of  the  ancient  British  Church,  rightly 
including  among  the  latter  the  saints  of  Gallic  Brit- 
tany. In  other  words,  the  narratives  of  Celtic  origin, 
in  his  opinion,  have  a  portentous  wildness  of  state- 
ment which  is  characteristic.     It  is  as  much  as  could 


Antiq.,  p.  353,  edit.  16S7).  Vet  these  stories  of  the  recreated 
pig  and  the  bleating  mutton  formed  part  of  the  faith  of  the 
people  of  Scotland.  They  both  are  read  in  the  Lessons  for  St. 
Serf's  day  in  the  Aberdeen  BrLviary.  The  Rev,  T.  Olden  has 
been  so  good  as  to  point  out  to  me  a  similar  story  in  Jocelyn's 
Life  of  SL  Patriek.  St.  Patrick's  he-goal,  employed  by  the  saint 
in  carrying  water,  was  stolen,  killed,  and  eaten.  The  suspected 
thief  declared  his  innocence  on  oath  ;  but  "a  vile-sounding  bleat- 
ing" in  the  stomach  of  the  culprit  revealed  the  truth,  (f'^ila  S. 
Pat.,  cap.  XV.) 


HIGHLY-COLOURED   DESCRIPTIONS..  77 

be  expected  of  him  when  he  declares  them  to  be 
"almost  incredible."  ^  And  I  am  afraid  it  is  only  too 
true  that  the  Celtic  saints  occupy  this  position  of 
unenviable  pre-eminence  ;  though  I  am  bound  to  say 
the  hermit  saints  of  Egypt  come  in  a  good  second. 

Some  may,  I  fear,  think  that  I  have  been  unsym- 
pathetic in  my  treatment  of  the  lives  of  the  saints  of 
the  Celtic  period.  But  dealing,  as  I  was,  with  the 
trustworthiness  of  the  docnments,  I  do  not  know  that 
I  could  have  adopted  any  other  line.  I  am  quite 
willing  to  admit  that,  in  many  cases,  the  writers 
themselves  believed  the  marvels  that  they  reported. 
Allowance  must,  in  all  cnses,  be  made  for  tempera- 
ments characteristic  of  race.  An  excitable,  senti- 
mental, and  highly-emotional  people  will  be  judged 
by  a  different  standard  from  that  applicable  to  those 
of  a  cold-blooded  and  phlegmatic  disposition.  Rude 
and  uncultivated  minds  cannot  be  expected  to  pos- 
sess the  natural  critical  acumen  which  we  find  among 
peoples  who  have  been  subjected  for  generations  to 
a  strict  mental  discipline.  Even  at  this  day,  how 
difficult  it  is  for  us  to  discover  the  real  truth  from  the 
highly-coloured  descriptions  of  contemporary  events 
in  Ireland. 

Nor  should  we  omit  to  notice,  as  contributing 
something  to  the  influences  affecting  the  work  of  the 
old  Celtic  writers,  the  wild  and  sometimes  awe- 
inspiring  aspects  of  Nature  in  the  midst  of  which 
they  dwelt.     Life  upon  desolate  moorlands,  or  amid 

^  General  Preface  to  \\\q  Ada  Saucfoiinn,  Jan,  Tom.  i,,  p.  34. 


78  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

mountains  often  shrouded  in  mysterious  gloom,  or  by 
the  wild  shores  of  the  Atlantic,  may  well  have  fos- 
tered a  natural  tendency  to  strange  fancies  and 
superstitious  fears.  Even  now  Ireland  and  the  Scot- 
tish Highlands  can  breed  portents  and  prodigies 
which  cannot  breathe  the  air  of  regions  occupied  by 
people  of  Saxon  descent.  Those  who  have  read  the 
recently-published  Journal  of  Sir  Walter  Scott  may 
remember  how,  in  1827,  Sir  Walter  was  informed  by 
Clanronald  of  a  carefully-organized  attempt  made, 
apparently  shortly  before,  to  catch  a  7ciater-cou>,  which 
inhabited  a  small  lake  near  the  house  of  the  chieftain. 
And  the  excellent  editor  of  the  Journal^  Mr.  David 
Douglas,  adds  the  illustrative  note  that  yet  more 
recently  the  proprietor  of  Loch-na-Beiste,  "  moved  by 
tlie  entreaties  of  the  people  and  on  the  positive 
testimony  of  two  elders  of  the  Free  Church  that  the 
creature  was  hiding  in  his  loch,  attempted  its 
destruction  by  pumping  and  running  off  the  water ; 
this  plan  having  failed,  owing  to  the  smallness  of  the 
pumps  (though  it  was  persevered  in  for  two  years), 
he  next  tried  poisoning  the  water  by  emptying  into 
the  loch  a  quantity  of  quicklime."  But  the  water- 
cow  does  not  seem  to  have  suffered  materially,  as  it 
was  seen  in  the  neighbourhood  as  late  as  1884. 
"  This  transaction,"  adds  Mr.  Douglas,  "  formed  an 
element  in  a  case  before  the  Crofters'  Commission  at 
Aultbea,  in  May  1888."  Surely,  if  we  will  not  be  very 
hard  upon  the  grave  and  reverend  *'  Free  Church 
elders  "  towards  the  close  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
we  .must  make  allowance  for  the  witness-bearing  of 


TASTE    FOR    THE    MARVELLOUS.  79 

the  members  of  another  Scottish  Church  a  thousand 
years  earlier. 

It  seems  to  me  certain  that  "  the  law  of  demand 
and  supply  "  prevails  in  regard  to  "  miracles  "  as  well 
as  to  other  commodities.  Where  the  ordinary 
interests  of  life  are  numerous  and  varied,  there  is 
little  taste  for  the  marvellous.  Where,  on  the  con- 
trary, men's  thoughts  have  small  scope  beyond  the 
events  of  a  somewhat  monotonous  existence,  a  ghost, 
a  prodigy,  or  a  miracle  is  eagerly  accepted.  It  serves 
to  stir  the  dull  blood,  and  becomes  a  valued  possession. 
Now,  when  men  crave  a  stimulant  of  this  kind,  a 
supply  is  sure  to  be  forthcoming  among  an  imaginative 
people.  The  long  evenings  of  winter  spent  by  house- 
holds gathered  in  the  firelight  supplied  the  fitting 
environment  for  the  development  of  the  myth. 
Exaggeration  and  embellishment  were  absolutely 
certain ;  and  will  any  one,  knowing  what  human 
nature  is,  doubt  that  there  was  a  good  deal  of 
deliberate  invention  ?  But  when  a  striking  story  that 
reflected  honour  on  some  local  or  national  saint  once 
got  currency,  it  would  have  been  felt  by  most  as 
nothing  short  of  irreverence  or  profanity  to  question 
its  truth.  And  so,  by  and  by,  the  silliest  legends 
found  their  way,  not  only  into  the  popular  lives  of  the 
saints,  but  into  the  Service-books  of  the  Church. 


8o 


CHAPTER  VI. 

ST.  COLUMBA. 

Ix  treating  of  the  career  of  the  third  great  figure 
that  is  presented  to  us  in  the  history  of  the  evangeliza- 
tion of  Scotland,  we  are  fortunate  in  possessing  records 
of  a  very  different  kind  from  those  with  which  we  had 
to  deal  in  the  cases  of  St.  Ninian  and  St.  Kentigern. 
One  of  the  most  precious  relics  in  the  early  records  of 
any  people  is  the  Life  of  St.  Columha^  by  the  Abbat 
Adamnan.  No  wide  interval  of  time  intervened  in 
this  case  between  the  writer  and  the  subject  of  the 
biography.  In  his  early  years,  Adamnan  must  have 
had  "  frequent  opportunities  of  conversing  with  those 
who  had  seen  St.  Columba."  All  materials,  written 
or  oral,  which  lona  could  supply  were  at  his 
disposal.  He  wrote  his  account  in  the  island  home 
of  the  saint,  and  "  surrounded  by  objects,  every  one 
of  which  was  fresh  with  the  impress  of  some  interest- 
ing association."  Though  Adamnan  was  the  ninth 
abbat  of  the  monastery  of  lona,  the  succession  of  its 
chief  officers  had  been  rapid  ;  and  it  was  only  one 
hundred  years  after  the  death  of  the  saint  that  he 


ADAMNAN  S    MEMOIR.  8l 

drew  up  his  inestimable  memoir.  He  bad  before  him 
at  least  two  written  documents  dealing  with  his 
subject,  and  of  these  he  makes  use.^  Whatever  may 
be  thought  of  his  narratives  of  miraculous  occurrences, 
there  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  he  was  not  an 
honest  relater  of  what  he  heard  from  others  or  found 
recorded  in  writing.  iVnd  the  innumerable  notices  of 
the  ordinary  incidents  in  the  story  of  the  founder  of 
his  house  bear  the  unquestionable  stamp  of  truthful- 
ness. The  whole  work  abounds  in  material  by  the 
help  of  which  it  is  not  difficult  to  reconstruct  with 
much  reasonable  confidence  the  constitution  of  the 
brotherhood  and  to  picture  to  ourselves  the  daily  life 
of  its  members.  The  Scottish  antiquary,  Pinkerton, 
does  not  perhaps  overrate  the  merits  of  Adamnan's 
work  when  he  declares  it  to  be  "  the  most  complete 
piece  of  such  biography  that  Europe  can  boast  of, 
not  only  at  so  early  a  period,  but  even  through  the 
whole  Middle  Ages."  ^  And  the  latest  and  most 
learned  editor  Of  the  work  declares  that  "  Adamnan's 
memoir  is  to  be  prized  as  an  inestimable  literary  relic 
of  the  Irish  Church  :  perhaps,  with  all  its  defects,  the 
most  valuable  monument  of  that  institution  which  has 
escaped  the  ravages  of  time."  ^  And  we  must  add 
that  the  inquirer  into  this  period  of  Scottish  ecclesias- 
tical history  is  fortunate  not  only  in  the  possession  of 
this  early  memoir,  but  also  fortunate  to  a  very  high 
degree   in  the  consummate    learning   and   judgment 

^   Dr.  Y^QQWts,  Hislorians  of  Scotland,  vol.  vi.,  p.  xx. 

-  Eiiqtiii-y,  etc.,  vol.  i.,  p.  xlviii. 

•^  Reeves,  tit  supra,  Preface,  p.  xx\i. 

F 


52  THE    CELTIC   CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

exercised  in  its  illustration  by  the  late  Dr.  William 
Reeves,  afterwards  Bishop  of  Down  and  Connor. 

The  consideration  of  the  supposed  miraculous 
occurrences  recorded  by  Adamnan  will  be  con- 
sidered in  a  separate  chapter.  We  shall  here 
endeavour  to  sketch  the  life  of  Columba,  as  it  may 
be  gathered  from  this  work  and  from  other  ancient 
records. 

In  our  sketch  of  the  planting  of  the  Christian 
Church  in  Scotland  there  now  comes  to  be  related  an 
event,  seemingly  insignificant,  but  in  reality  pregnant 
with  profound  consequences  to  the  future  of  religion, 
not  only  in  Scotland  but  in  Britain  generally,  and, 
indeed,  not  without  its  considerable  influence  on  the 
fortunes  of  the  faith  in  various  parts  of  the  continent 
of  Europe. 

One  day,  in  the  year  of  our  Lord  563,  there  landed 
upon  a  small  island  off  the  west  coast  of  Scotland  an 
Irish  monk,  Columba  by  name,  with  twelve  com- 
panions, who  had  accompanied  him  from  his  native 
land. 

It  was  not  uncommon,  in  those  days  of  violence, 
rapine,  and  frequent  tribal  quarrels,  for  men  who  had 
mada  choice  of  the  life  of  monastic  devotion  to  seek 
for  the  more  complete  retirement  and  greater  security 
which  were  attainable  by  removing  themselves  out  of 
the  track  of  wars,  with  the  danger  of  enforced  military 
service,  and  away  from  the  fear  of  the  fierce  marauding 
bands,  from  whose  savagery  few  parts  of  the  mainland 
were  long  exempt.  Hence  one  of  the  characteristic 
features  of  Irish  monasticism — its  fondness  for  island 


iONA.  S3 

homes.  The  islands  off  the  west  coasts  of  Ireland 
and  Scotland  abound  to  this  day  in  ecclesiastical 
memories ;  and  many  shadowy  traditions  gather 
round  the  remains  of  broken  cross,  ruined  cell,  or 
roofless  chapel,  over  which  have  swept  tlie  spray- 
laden  Atlantic  storms  of  a  thousand  years. 

In  the  particular  case  before  us,  other  motives  may 
have  been  at  work  in  determining  the  choice,  in  the 
first  instance,  of  lona  as  a  place  of  settlement,  or,  at 
all  events,  the  continued  preference  shown  for  it. 
The  little  island  that  Columba  made  his  home  and 
head-quarters  for  thirty-five  years,  while  being  indeed 
a  place  of  secure  retirement,  when  retirement  was 
sought,  proved  also  a  serviceable  basis  of  operation 
in  active  missionary  enterprise.  Along  the  deeply- 
indented  coast-line  of  the  west  of  Scotland  a  boat 
with  oars  and  sails  gave  the  missionary  of  the  sixth 
century  almost  as  many  advantages  as  he  would 
possess  at  the  present  day.  He  could  not,  indeed,  as 
we  can  with  the  aid  of  steam,  defy  wind  and  tide  ;  but, 
watching  his  opportunities,  he  could  move  about  with 
ease,  and  choose  his  own  places  and  his  own  time  for 
landing  and  leaving. 

In  the  monastic  system  of  Ireland  and  Celtic 
Scotland,  as  elsewhere,  the  continuous  round  of 
Divine  worship,  the  cultivation  of  the  spirit  of 
devotion,  the  study  of  Divine  truth,  the  practice  of 
self-discipline,  were  all  duly  cared  for ;  but  with  these 
were  conjoined  on  the  part  of  the  Celtic  monks  a 
missionary  zeal  so  earnest  and  an  ardour  of  diffusive 
Christian    love    so   glowing,  that    the    lives    of  their 


84  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

recluses  and  anchorites  are  seldom  thought  of,  and 
our  mmds  naturally  dwell  on  the  active  and  untiring 
missionary  labours  which  have  achieved  such  great 
things  for  the  evangelization  of  our  own  land,  and 
^vhich  subsequently  extended  their  beneficent  influence 
even  to  the  remote  regions  of  Germany  and  Switzer- 
land and  Italy. 

But  who  was  this  Columba?  His  story  has  been 
often  told,  and  can  never  gain  a  hearing  without 
stirring  men's  hearts,  for  it  is  indeed  the  story  of 
a  noble  life,  a  life  of  high  aims  and  unceasing 
endeavour,  a  life  full  of  loving  sympathy  with  his 
fellow-men,  and  of  loving  devotion  to  his  Lord.  And 
if  Columba  was  not  without  his  failings  and  faults, 
they  are  faults  and  failings  that  beset  men  of  naturally 
warm  hearts,  strong  will,  and  eager  temperament,  and 
such  as  are  often  found  associated  with  the  characters 
of  those  who  have  made  a  deep  impression  upon  their 
fellows,  and  have  gained  for  themselves  commanding 
stations  in  the  history  of  the  world,  or  of  the  Church. 

Columba  was  born  in  Donegal  in  the  year  521. 
He  belonged  to  the  clan  of  the  O'Donnels,  which  has 
again  and  again  figured  largely  in  the  subsecjuent 
history  of  Ireland.  He  was  descended  on  both 
father  and  mother's  side  from  the  families  of  powerful 
provincial  princes. 

AVe  have  seen  that  tradition  has  represented  the 
two  other  great  figures  that  attract  the  eye  when  we 
view  the  early  history  of  religion  in  Scotland,  St. 
Ninian  and  St.  Mungo,  as  also  of  royal  blood.  iVnd 
this,  taken  together  with  what  we  now  learn  was  told 


cnTjTArr.A's  rovat.  descent.  85 

of  St.  Columba,  may  perhaps  raise  a  suspicion  in  some 
minds  that  there  is  something  of  romancing  in  these 
old  stories.  But  I  do  not  think  that  farther  consider- 
ation will  bear  out  the  suspicion — I  mean  as  regards 
this  particular  feature  of  the  histories.  It  is  true  that 
there  was  a  temptation  to  the  ancient  hagiologists  to 
glorify  their  heroes  by  representing  them  as  of  exalted 
birth ;  but  taking  ail  the  evidence  into  account,  we 
may,  I  think,  come  to  the  conclusion  that  while  in 
the  case  of  Columba  his  royal  descent  and  connection 
must  be  regarded  as  absolutely  certain,  in  the  other 
cases,  more  particularly  that  of  St.  Ninian,  there  is  no 
sufficient  reason  to  seriously  question  the  statement. 
Again,  we  should  remember  that  the  bringing  up  of  a 
child  amid  the  traditions  of  a  historic  family,  the 
inspiring  effect  of  the  stirring  tales  of  forefathers  and 
relations,  and  the  comparative  breadth  of  view  that 
must  have  been  found  in  the  circle  of  a  great  chief,  as 
contrasted  with  the  mere  personal  cares  and  petty 
occupations  of  the  common  crowd,  would  all  have 
helped  to  stimulate  the  imagination,  and  have  made 
easier  the  influence  of  ideal  motives  in  initiating  great 
things.  High  courage  and  the  spirit  of  adventure 
often  comes  amid  such  surroundings  ;  and  both  were 
indeed  needed  by  the  early  Christian  pioneers  in 
Britain.  In  the  case  of  Columba,  as  we  shall  see,  his 
royal  connections  helped  probably  to  determine  his 
choosing  liis  settlement  among  the  islands  of  the  west 
of  Scotland.  Again,  we  shall  not  be  wrong  in  believ- 
ing that,  among  a  people  so  keenly  alive  to  the  claims 
of  hereditary  rank  as  the  Celtic  populations  of  Scotland 


86  TTIF.    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

and  Ireland,  the  advantages  possessed  by  Columba 
must  have  added  vastly  to  his  influence  as  preacher, 
missionary,  and  monastic  ruler. 

At  his  baptism  the  boy  was  given,  as  is  supposed, 
the  two  names — Crimthann,  a  "  wolf,"  and  Colum,  a 
"dove."  The  former  name,  which  might  have  been 
very  appropriate  had  the  noble  child  devoted  him- 
self in  after  life,  like  so  many  of  his  ancestors  and 
relations,  to  war  and  rapine,  was  dropped  by  the 
Christian  priest  and  missionary ;  and  Colm,  or,  in  its 
Latin  form,  Columba,  is  the  name  under  which  he 
has  become  famous  in  Church  history.^ 

Columba,  it  is  said,  was  from  early  years  devoted  to 
attendance  on  the  services  of  the  Church.  We  do  not 
find  in  his  case,  as  in  that  of  some  others  who  in  the 
days  of  their  subsequent  penitence  did  great  things 
for  Christ,  that  he  was  in  early  days  led  astray  by  the 
seductions  of  the  world  or  of  youthful  pleasures.  He 
is  represented  as  from  boyhood  devoted  to  the  prac- 
tice of  piety,  and  as  an  eager  student.  He  first 
attended  the  monastic  school  of  St.  Finnian  of  Moville, 
at  the  head  of  Strangford  Lough ;  and  there  he  was 
ordained  deacon.    He  next  moved  south  into  Leinster, 


^  In  after  time  the  word  *'kille"  was  sometimes  added  to  the 
word  "Colm  " — either  on  account,  as  is  said,  of  the  great  number 
of  churches  founded  by  him,  or  on  account  of  his  early  devotion 
to  attendance  at  church.  The  name  Colum  in  different  forms 
was  a  great  favourite.  The  suffix  an  is  a  diminutive,  and  has 
given  us  the  very  common  name  of  Colman  =  Columan.  Dr. 
Gammack  (in  Smith  and  Wace's  Dictiouary  of  Christian  Bio- 
graphy) supplies  notices  of  41  Cohnans  ;  and  Archbishop  Usher 
says  that  upwards  of  230  of  that  name  are  to  be  found  in  records 
of  Irish  saints. 


I 


MOXA^TERV    OF    CT.ONARD.  87 

and  placed  himself  under  the  instruction  of  a  secular 
teacher — the  ''  bard  "  Gem  man.  At  a  subsequent  time 
we  shall  find  him  exerting  himself  successfully  for  the 
protection  of  the  Irish  bards  (the  professional  poets 
and  chroniclers  of  Ireland),  at  the  great  Council  of 
Drumceatt.  He  was  himself  a  skilful  writer  of  verse, 
and  we  possess,  not  only  some  remarkable  Latin 
hymns,  but  also  some  poems  in  his  Irish  vernacular, 
which  have  been,  not  without  reason,  attributed  to  his 
pen.i  Thus  we  see  he  did  not  despise  what  was  the 
chief  form  of  secular  culture  known  to  his  age  and 
country. 

We  next  find  Columba  attending  the  most  famous 
school  of  ecclesiastical  learning  of  that  day  in  Ireland 
— the  monastery  of  Clonard,  situated  on  the  upper 
waters  of  the  Boyne,  under  another  St.  Finnian.- 
Clonard,  in  respect  to  the  vast  number  of  its  monks 
and  students,  reminds  one  of  a  media2val  university. 
Usher  seems  to  accept  the  statement  that  reckons  its 
scholars  as  three  thousand.  And  here  Columba 
remained  for  several  years.' 

It  is  of  much  interest  to  note  that  Columba,  in 
attending  the  schools  of  the  two  Finnians,  became 
probably  acquainted  with  the    monastic  systems   of 


1  See  Appendix  I.  for  a  translation  of  the  poem  Al/ifs 
Prosator  attributed  to  Columba. 

-  The  name  in  the  forms  Finian,  Finan,  Fintan,  Findan,  etc., 
is  very  common.  It  is  the  diminutive  of  Finn  =  white,  i.  e.  prob- 
ably "the  light-haired."  Finnian  of  Moville  is  sometimes 
referred  to  under  the  name  Find-bar  =  white  head. 

''  The  numbers  at  Clonard  find  a  parallel  in  the  case  of  the 
I^risli  Bangor. 


55  TTIF,    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

both  the  north  British  school  of  Candida  Casa  (where 
Finnian  of  Moville  had  studied),  and  also  of  the  south 
British,  or  Welsh,  school  of  St.  David  (under  whose 
instruction  at  Menevia,  Finnian  of  Clonard  had  been 
a  pupil).  In  Columba  the  influence  of  St.  Ninian  in 
Galloway  came  back  to  another  part  of  Scotland  l)y  a 
strange  route. 

It  is  also  interesting  to  know  that  botli  these  St. 
Finnians  are  commemorated  in  Scottish  mediaeval 
calendars,  and  that  Finnian  of  Moville,  appearing 
under  the  form  Vinnin  or  Wynnin,  has,  as  has  been 
thought,  given  his  name  to  the  town  of  Kilwinning 
in  Ayrshire. 

At  Clonard  Columba  gained  much  skill  in  the  art 
of  the  copyist,  which,  in  other  hands,  was  brought 
afterwards  to  such  marvellous  artistic  perfection,  as  we 
find  in  the  superb  decorations  of  the  Book  of  Kells 
and  other  Irish  manuscripts.  It  was  while  a  resident 
at  Clonard  that  Columba  was  ordained  Presbyter ; 
and  the  story  that  refers  to  the  incident  is  so  curious 
and  instructive,  that  it  is  worth  being  related.  Its 
historic  value,  indeed,  is  of  the  slightest.  Reeves 
declares  it  to  be  a  fiction  of  a  later  age,  but  it  illus- 
trates very  well  some  of  the  ecclesiastical  usages  of 
the  time.  St.  Finnian,  who  was  at  the  head  of  the 
great  monastery,  was  not  himself  of  higher  rank  than 
presbyter,  but  perhaps  he  desired  to  have  Columba 
as  a  resident  bishop,  who  would  perform  all  the 
needed  episcopal  duties  of  the  place.  Accordingly, 
as  the  story  runs,  he  sent  Columba  to  Etchen,  bishop 
at  the  monastery  of  Clonfad  (in  Westmeath),  with  a 


CDLUMr.A's    ORDINATION.  89 

request  for  his  consecration.  On  reaching  Clonfad 
and  inquiring  for  the  bishop,  Columba  is  informed 
that  he  is  ploughing  in  a  neighbouring  field.  On 
finding  the  bishop  and  disclosing  his  errand,  he  is 
received  in  a  very  kind  manner,  but  through  some 
error  as  to  the  wishes  of  St.  Finnian,  or  some  other 
unaccountable  mistake,  Columba  is  ordained  only 
priest,  and  not  bishop.  Now  let  us  observe  what  may 
be  learned  from  this  legend,  supposing  it  to  reflect 
the  ecclesiastical  notions  current  at  a  very  early  date 
in  Ireland.  We  saw  already  that  St.  Mungo  was  con- 
secrated bishop  by  only  one  Irish  bishop,  and  the 
same  practice — which,  as  I  have  said,  has  always  been 
reckoned  by  the  Church  generally  as  valid^  though 
iincanonical  and  irreo-i/Iar — seems  to  have  continued, 
at  least  on  occasions,  till  the  twelfth  century.  Cer- 
tainly Lanfranc,  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  (1070 — 
1093),  complained  of  the  practice  as  existing  in 
Ireland  in  his  day ;  and  the  complaint  was  repeated 
by  his  successor,  Anselm  (1093 — 1114).^ 

This  curious  story  not  only  points  to  the  practice  of 
consecration  by  a  single  bisliop,  but  suggests  the 
notion  that  what  is  known  as  consecration  J^er  saltum 
(that  is,  that  consecration  to  the  higher  grade  without 
formally  passing  through  the  lower)  was  then  recog- 
nized. Very  many  hundred  years  afterwards,  when 
James  VI.  desired  to  restore  the  episcopal  succession 
to  Scotland,  this  question  of  per  saltum  consecration 
was  discussed,  and  the  bishops  of  the  Jacobean  epis- 
copate were  consecrated  (with  the   sanction   of  the 

^   Usiier,  Vi'l.  Epsf.  Hibcrn.  Syllogc,  xxvii.,  x\xv.,  xxxvi. 


90  TITE    CELTIC    CHURCTT    IN    SCOTLAND. 

most  learned  theologians  of  England)  without  being 
required  to  go  through  the  inferior  grades  of  deacon 
and  presbyter.  The  conferring  of  the  higher  office 
was  held  to  include  the  authority  to  exercise  the 
functions  of  the  two  lower.^ 

Columba  appears  never  afterwards  to  have  sought 
the  rank  of  bishop;  and  th^  sentiment  that  it  was 
unbecoming  that  any  of  his  successors  should  possess 
a  higher  dignity  than  their  great  patron  became  a  well- 
defined  practical  rule  of  the  Columban  monasteries. 

But  we  must  hasten  over  the  remainder  of  the  story 
of  Columba  in  Ireland.  After  spending  some  time  at 
another  monastery,  that  of  (ilasnevin  (now  a  suburb 
of  Dublin,  where  are  situated  beautiful  Botanic 
Gardens  and  a  great  public  cemetery),  he  devoted, 
according  to  Bishop  Reeves,  some  fifteen  years  to 
planting  churches  and  monasteries  in  various  parts  of 
Ireland ;  and  in  view  of  his  subsequent  settlement  in 
lona,  it  is  not  uninteresting  to  observe  that  some  of 
his  Irish  monasteries  were  situated  in  islands  off  the 
coast,  as,  for  example,  Lambay,  Rathlin,  Tory,  and 
Inishowen.2 

^  After  tlie  great  rebellion,  however,  when  in  1661  episcopacy 
was  again  restored  to  Scotland,  two  Scottish  divines— Leighton 
and  Sharp — consecrated  bishops  at  Westminster,  were  required 
to  submit  to  previous  ordination  as  deacons  and  presbyters. 
The  validity  of  the  former  consecrations  to  the  episcopate  (in 
16 10)  was  not  indeed  questioned,  but  it  was  probal)ly  thought 
wiser  to  anticipate  and  prevent  the  raising  of  doubts  at  a  later 
time. 

-  St.  Columba's  labours  in  Ireland  have  gained  for  him  the 
distinction  of  being  reckoned  in  Ireland  as  one  of  "the  Three 
Patrons  "  of  the  country — St.  Patxick  an,d  St.  Bj-igid  being  tlie 
other  two. 


COLUMP.A  LEAVES  TRET, AND.  QT 

We  now  come  to  the  time  when  Columba  entered 
upon  his  labours  in  Scotland.  This  was  not  till  he 
had  reached  forty-two  years  of  age,  but  the  remaining 
thirty-four  years  of  a  very  active  life  were  spent  almost 
wholly  either  in  his  home  at  lona,  or  among  the  other 
islands,  or  on  the  mainland  of  Scotland,  engaged 
chiefly  in  the  work  of  converting  the  heathen  Picts  of 
the  north,  and  in  teaching  and  building  up  the 
scattered  and  enfeebled  Christian  communities  of  men 
of  his  own  race  already  existing  in  the  western 
highlands. 

Why  did  Columba  leave  Ireland  ?  Different  reasons 
have  been  assigned.  Some  contend  that  the  love  of 
God  and  of  his  brethren  was  to  him  a  sufficient  motive, 
and  that  his  immediate  objects  were  the  instruction  of 
the  Christian  Irish  of  the  principality  in  Argyll,  and 
the  conversion  of  their  neighbours,  the  Northern  Picts. ^ 
It  is  necessary  to  be  acquainted  with  the  fact  that  for 
some  considerable  time  before  Columba's  day,  Scots 
from  the  north  coast  of  Antrim,  and  belonging  to  the 
district  called  Dalriada,  had  been  emigrating  to  the 
west  of  what  is  now  Scotland,  passing  over  the  narrow 
channel  that  separated  them  from  the  Scottish  main- 
land. They  probably  might  easily  land  in  Cantire, 
and  spread  up  along  the  western  coast  of  Argyll ;  and 
so  tliey  founded  another  principality  of  Dalriada,  and 
laid  the  foundations  of  that  other  Scotia  or  Scotland, 


1  See  Dr.  George  Grub,  Eccl.  Hist,  of  Scot.,  vol.  i.,  p.  49,  and 
Dr.  Skene,  Celtic  Scotland,  vol.,  ii.  p.  79  ;  and  this  view  seems 
to  be  accepted  as  the  more  probable  by  Prof.  Stokes,  Ireland 
and  the    Celtic  Church,  p.  1 12  sq. 


92  THE    CET.TTC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

which  eventually  took  sole  possession  of  the  name. 
The  great  body  of  these  Dalriads  was  Christianized 
before  their  emigration  to  Britain.  Conal,  the  reigning 
prince  of  the  British  Dalriads  at  the  time  of  Cokmiba's 
first  visiting  that  region,  was  a  kinsman  of  the  saint. 
Those  who  care  to  trace  the  genealogy  and  family  history 
of  Columba  can  do  so  with  the  help  of  Bishop  Reeves  ; 
but  it  must  suffice  here  to  say  that  Columba's  royal 
descent  and  connections  served  him  in  good  stead  in 
his  work  among  the  Scots  in  the  region  of  Argyll  and 
the  more  southern  islands. 

Professor  Stokes,  who  here  substantially  follows 
Skene,!  suggests  (and  I  think  he  has  here  rightly 
gauged  the  high  spirit  and  chivalrous  temper  of  the 
man)  that  the  imminent  danger  to  which  the  new  colony 
was  exposed  of  extinction  at  the  hands  of  the  pagan 
Picts,  stirred  the  heart  of  Columba  to  go  to  the  effective 
assistance  of  his  brethren,  by  bringing  to  their  aid,  "  not 
the  might  of  temporal  warfare,  but  of  those  spiritual 
weapons  which  alone  can  curb  and  restrain  unre- 
generate  nature."  Certainly  it  was  only  two  or  three 
years  before  the  arrival  of  Columba  among  the  British 
Scots  that  they  had  received  a  terrible  defeat  from  the 
Northern  Picts,  under  their  warlike  and,  as  Bede  calls 
him,  ''most  powerful  king,"  Brude,  whom  we  shall 
presently  meet  again  in  the  history  of  Columba. 
What  would  have   deterred  timid   natures  may  well 


^  Skene  says  plainly,  '"'This  great  reverse  (/.  e.  the  defeat  of 
the  r)ritish  Scots  by  llrudc)  called  forth  the  mission  of  Columba, 
commonly  called  Columcille,  and  led  to  the  foundation  of  the 
monastic  Church  in  Scotland."     Ccl/ic  Scotland^  vol.  ii.,  p.  79, 


kEASON    FUK    1.LA\1NG    lRi:i,ANI).  93 

have  acted  as  a  powerful  attraction  to  the  generous, 
ardent,  and  right-royal  soul  of  Columba. 

Such  seems  a  probable  account  of  the  reasons  that 
actuated  Columba  in  seeking  this  new  lield  of  labour, 
as  they  commend  themselves  to  some  among  our 
ablest  recent  historians. 

Bishop  Reeves,  however,  is  evidently  not  disposed 
to  regard  as  altogether  valueless  the  account  which, 
from  a  very  early  date,  had  currency  and  acceptance 
in  Ireland,  and  which  represents  the.  settlement  of 
Columba  at  lona  as  an  involuntary  exile,  due  to 
ecclesiastical  censures  passed  upon  him  for  the  part 
taken  by  him  in  originating  and  urging  on  a  war  in 
which  much  Christian  blood  was  shed  on  both  sides. ^ 
At  any  rate,  there  might  be  just  cause  of  complaint 
against  me  if  I  were  to  omit  a  story  which,  even  if 
without  historical  foundation,  is  often  referred  to,  and 
which  should  therefore,  if  for  no  better  reason,  be 
known  to  those  who  claim  to  possess  acquaintance 
with  the  life  of  the  saint. 

Briefly  told,  the  story  runs  as  follows.  His  old 
teacher,  St.  Finnian  of  Moville  gave  on  one  occasion 
permission  to  Columba  to  examine,  for  the  purpose 
of  study,  a  manuscript  of  the  Book  of  Psalms,  or,  as 
some  say,  a  manuscript  of  the  Gospels,  which  was 
Finnian's  property.      But  Columba  was  not  content 

^  The  Rev.  II.  J.  Lawlor  has  observed  very  justly  that  the  two 
accounts  are  not  inconsistent.  "  St.  Columba  (i)  determined  to 
engage  in  missionary  work  :  this  may  have  been  in  consequence 
of  the  judgment  of  Molaise  ;  (2)  he  chose  a  parlicular  sphere  of 
work  :  to  this  he  may  have  been  guided  by  the  considerations 
referred  to  by  Skene  and  Stokes." 


94  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

with  only  reading  the  book  ;  he  forthwith  proceeded 
to  make  a  transcript  of  it.     When  the  account  of  this 
infringement   of  copyright   reached   the   ears  of  St. 
Finnian,  it  roused  him  to  warm  indignation.     He  de- 
manded that  the  copy  should  be  handed  over  to  him, 
together  with  the  original.     This  demand  Columba 
stoutly  refused  ;  and  eventually  it  was  resolved  that 
the  question  in    dispute    should   be   referred   to  the 
decision  of  the   King  of  Meath.      The  king  in  full 
court  decided  against  Columba.      The  principle  on 
which  the  decision  was  based  was  one  laid  down  in  the 
Brehon  law;    and  the  judgment  was  delivered,  "To 
every  cow  her  calf  belongs,  and  so  to  every  book  its 
child-book."      Columba's    proud   temper  would   not 
brook  this  adverse  ruling,  and  he  resolved  to  resort  to 
arms  with  the  aid  of  his  clansmen,  the  Northern  Hy- 
Neill.     No  doubt  he  would  represent  it  to  himself  as 
a  struggle,  not  on  account  of  a  paltry  book,  but  for  the 
sake  of  a  principle  of  justice  and  right.     We  know 
how  easy  it  is  for  good  men  when  angry  to  find  that 
they  are  not  contending  for  self  but  for  principle.     A 
battle  was  fought  at  Cooldrevny  (somewhere  between 
the  town  of  Sligo  and  the  neighbouring  Drumcliffe). 
Victory  went  with  the  Ulster  allies  of  Columba,  and 
3000  men  of  IMeath  were  reckoned  among  the  slain. 
I  offer  no  opinion  on  the  probability  of  this  story ;  I 
would  only  say  that  in  estimating  the  evidence  we 
should  not  fail  to  take  into  account  the  fierce  spirit  of 
the  age.     Again,  we  must  not  omit  to  remember  the 
very  slight  occasions  that  have  at  almost  all  times  been 
found  sufficient  in  Ireland  to  stir  up  clan-feuds;  nor, 


l:\C0MMUNICAT10N    OF    COLU.MIiA.  95 

finally,  the  historical  fact  that  at  that  time,  and  long 
after,  it  was  not  considered  derogatory  to  the  members 
of  the  monasteries  to  bear  arms  and  take  an  active  part 
in  bloody  wars. 

The  story  in  one  of  its  forms  then  goes  on  to  say 
that  Columba,  after  the  slaughter  at  Cooldrevny,  con- 
sulted his  "  soul-friend,"  /.  e.  his  confessor  and  spiritual 
adviser,  Molaise,  who  then  lived  on  the  wild  island  of 
Inismurray,  six  miles  off  the  Sligo  coast.^  Perhaps 
Columba  was  already  suffering  the  excommunication 
by  an  ecclesiastical  synod  of  which  we  hear  in  another 
account.  Indeed,  we  have  the  authority  of  Adamnan 
for  saying  that  he  was  for  a  time  excommunicated  ; 
Adamnan  says  for  trivial  faults,  and,  as  it  afterwards 
appeared,  unjustly.  At  any  rate,  Molaise  is  said  to 
have  enjoined  upon  Columba  as  a  penance  to  leave 
his  dear  Ireland,  and  to  devote  himself  to  missionary 
labours  among  the  heathen  Picts  until  he  had  con- 
verted to  Christ  as  many  souls  as  his  recent  conduct 
had  brought  down  to  death  upon  the  battle-field. 

In  accord  with  the  story  I  have  now  related,  is  the 
further  feature  of  the  legend  (which  is  certainly  not 
without  a  tender  and  poetic  beauty  of  its  own),  that 
Columba,  attended  by  twelve  companions,  having 
sailed  from  Ireland  in  compliance  with  the  penance 
enjoined  upon  him,  first  landed  at  the  island  of  Oron- 
say;  but  finding  that  from  the  highest  point  of  the 

^  See  an  extremely  interesting  account  of  this  island  and  its 
ecclesiastical^  remains,  quoted  by  Stokes,  Ireland  and  the  Celtic 
Cluin/i,  vol,  i,,  1^.  184  jv/,  I  have  visited  Inismurray,  and  can 
testify  to  the  profoundly  interesting  character  of  the  place. 


96  'JHE   CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCO'lLAND. 

land  he  could  still  see  the  distant  coast-line  of  his 
beloved  Ireland,  he  again  embarked,  and  finally 
settled  at  lona,  after  having  satisfied  himself  that  no 
longer  was  Ireland  visible. ^ 

From  the  documents  sifted  and  examined  in  the 
historic  spirit,  it  would  appear  that  a  grant  of  the 
island  of  lona  was  made  to  Columba  by  his  kinsman 
Conal,  the  reigning  prince  of  the  colony  of  Dalriads  in 
Scotland  ;  and  it  seems  not  improbable  that  before  the 
landing  of  Columba  on  lona,  the  island  already  con- 
tained a  Christian  community.  But,  however  this  may 
have  been,  henceforth  lona  was  to  be  for  ever  associ- 
ated pre-eminently  with  the  name  of  Columba. 

The  eventful  landing  of  Columba  in  lona  is  to  be 
placed,  as  has  been  said,  in  the  year  of  our  Lord  563. 

Columba,  having  built  a  church  and  monastic  cells 
of  a  rude  kind,  and  generally  organized  his  litUe  com- 
munity in  the  island,  soon  turned  his  attention  to 
labour  among  his  Irish  brethren  in  British  Dalriada, 
and  more  especially  to  the  grand  design  of  Chris- 
tianizing the  enemies  at  once  of  his  countrymen  and 
of  the  faith — the  northern  pagan  Picts. 

At  this  time  the  kingdom  of  the  Pictisli  king, 
Brude,  the  son  of  Mailcon,  was  powerful  and  widely 
extended.  The  principal  residence  of  the  king  was 
situated  not  far  from  Inverness.-     Columba  was  at- 

^  II  has  been  conjectmcd  by  some  that  Cohunba's  leaving 
Ireland  was  a  self-intiicted  penance. 

-  Reeves  places  the  royal  residence  at  the  vitrified  fort  of 
Craigphadrick,  the  remains  of  which  are  still  to  be  seen  ;  but 
Skene,  as  I  think,  with  more  reason,  is  disposed  in  favour  of 
Torvean,  or  else  the  eminence  known  as  the  Crown.  Celtic 
Scotland,  vol.  ii.,  p.  106. 


VISIT    TO    KINO    r.RUDE.  97 

tended  on  his  journey  to  the  fortress  of  Brude  by 
some  of  his  trusty  companions.  Two  of  them,  both 
famous  in  Church  history,  were  Picts  by  race,  though 
of  the  Irish  branch ;  and  it  looks  hke  what  might  be 
called  an  "  undesigned  coincidence "  to  find  them 
associated  in  the  narrative  with  the  mission  to  the 
Picts  of  the  north.  One  was  Comgall,  abbot  of  the 
famous  monastery  of  Bangor  in  the  county  of  Down. 
The  other  was  Cainnech  or  Canice,  who  has  given 
his  name  to  the  ancient  city  and  cathedral  of  Kil- 
kenny. He  was  known  in  Scotland  as  Kenneth,  and, 
judging  from  the  number  of  churches  dedicated  under 
his  name,  he  was  secpnd  only  to  St.  Columba  and  St. 
Bride  (/.  e.  Brigid)  in  popularity.^ 

The  Christian  monks,  when  they  arrived  at  the 
palace  of  King  Brude,  were  met  by  closed  and  fastened 
doors ;  but  before  the  sign  of  the  cross,  as  the  story 
is  told,  the  locks  flew  back,  the  gates  opened,  and 
Columba  and  his  companions  entered. 

The  Life  of  St.  Columba,  by  Adamnan  (of  which  we 
shall  have  to  speak  more  fully  later  on),  abounds  from 
beginning  to  end  with  stories  of  the  miraculous,  and, 
as  we  shall  hereafter  have  occasion  to  observe,  many 
of  them  are  intractable  by  any  fair  process,  and  must 
either  be  accepted  as  they  stand,  or  else  be  set  down  as 
pure  inventions,  or  at  all  events  inventions  with  only 
the  smallest  grain  of  truth  for  a  basis.  In  this  par- 
ticular instance,  however,  it  is  easy  to  see  how  some 
metaphorical  expression  as  to  the  wonderful  removal 

^  See,  for  a  list  of  dedications,  Forbes'  Kalendars  of  Scottish 
Saints,  p.  297. 

G 


98  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

of  formidable  obstructions  to  the  preaching  of  the 
faith,  and  "  the  opening  of  a  door  "  (in  Pauline  phrase- 
ology) for  the  servants  of  the  Cross  might  have 
originated  the  story. ^  King  Brude  is  represented  as 
awe-struck  by  what  had  happened ;  he  receives  the 
missionaries  with  reverence,  and  in  due  time  re- 
nounces heathenism,  and  is  baptized  into  the  faith 
of  Christ.  With  the  conversion  of  the  king  came 
rapidly  the  conversion  of  the  people,  after  the  manner 
not  uncommon  among  the  Celts,  with  whom  the 
honour  due  to  the  chief  is  often  regarded  as  demand- 
ing that  his  people  shall  follow  his  wishes  in  respect 
to  creed  and  religion  as  in  other  things.'-^ 

Here  it  is  natural  to  ask  the  question  :  What  was 
the  character  of  the  paganism  of  the  Picts  ?  Skene 
has  investigated  the  subject  with  his  customary 
thoroughness,  and  has  come  to  the  conclusion  that  it 
did  not  differ  substantially  from  the  paganism  of  the 
Scots  of  Ireland.  Accordingly,  the  documents  relating 
incidentally  to  the  early  religions  of  both  countries  may 
be  considered  together.  Unfortunately  the  notices  of 
Irish  and  Scottish  heathenism  are  not  very  numerous, 
and  nowhere  do  we  get  a  detailed  description  of  it. 
But  the  result  of  inquiry  leads  one  to  believe  that 
there  was  certainly  no  largely  developed  or  elaborate 
mythology.  The  late  learned  Dr.  James  Henthorn 
Todd  goes  indeed  so  far  as  to  say  that  ''  there  is  no 
evidence  of  their  having  had  any  personal  gods."  ^  The 

1  See  I  Cor.  xv.  9 ;  2  Cor.  ii.  12  ;  Col.  iv.  3. 
-  Illustrations  of  this  statement  may  be  found  in  the  Scottish 
Highlands  within  modern  times.        •"'  Life  of  St.  Patrick,  p.  414. 


THE    DRUIDS.  99 

sun,  the  moon,  and  the  stars,  the  sea,  the  rivers  and 
wells,  the  clouds  and  the  mountains,  were  certainly 
objects  of  religious  veneration,  but  whether  only  as  the 
habitations  of  the  earth-gods  (whom  the  Christian 
missionaries  regarded  as  demons)  or  not,  it  is  difficult 
to  say. 

In  the  early  lives  of  the  Celtic  missionary  saints  their 
most  vigorous  opponents  are  certain  persons  called 
Druids  {Druadli)  or,  in  the  Latin  records,  magi.  But 
these  Druids  do  not  recall  to  us  the  sacerdotal  figures 
that  are  pictured  under  that  name  in  Caesar's  familiar 
account  of  the  religion  of  the  Gauls  ;  they  are  pre- 
sented rather  as  sorcerers,  magicians,  and,  if  we  may 
borrow  the  name  from  South  African  paganism, 
"  medicine-men."  It  is  now  generally  acknowledged 
that  the  stone  circles  and  cromlechs  that  are  to  be 
found  in  various  parts  of  the  country  do  not  exhibit  to 
us  the  remains  of  heathen  temples  and  altars,  but  are, 
in  truth,  sepulchral  monuments.  The  magi  of  the 
Columban  records  are  not  apparently  priests,  but 
wizards,  who  have  gained  control  over  the  powers, 
personal  or  impersonal,  that  underlie  the  forces  of 
nature.  There  was  much,  in  this  Druidism,  of  the 
religion  of  fear.  Magical  rites,  spells,  and  incantations, 
designed  to  ward  off  the  ill-will  of  the  dread  mysterious 
powers,  or  to  stimulate  and  direct  their  energies  against 
enemies,  are  a  common  feature  in  the  narratives. 

It  is  of  deep  interest  to  observe  how  these  preten- 
sions of  the  magi,  or  Druids,  were  met  by  the  Christian 
missionaries.  In  general,  it  would  seem  that  the 
missionaries    themselves    accepted    the    supernatural 


TOO  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

character  of  the  power  possessed  by  the  Druids,  but 
regarded  it  as  obtained,  through  God's  permission, 
from  evil  spirits.  Hence  there  is  no  attempt  made  by 
the  missionaries  to  disprove  the  Druids'  miraculous 
performances,  no  attempt  to  expose  them,  as  would 
probably  be  the  mode  of  procedure  with  our  modern 
missionaries  in  similar  circumstances.  Columba  and 
the  other  ancient  saints  are  not  represented  as  explain- 
ing away  the  marvels  of  their  opponents,  but  as  out- 
rivalling  them.  And  the  contests  that  are  pictured  to 
us  at  once  recall  to  mind  the  trials  of  strength  between 
Moses,  the  servant  of  the  Lord,  and  the  magicians  of 
Egypt,  in  the  Old  Testament  story.  To  take  an 
example  from  the  history  of  St.  Columba.  On  the 
saint  letting  it  be  known  on  what  day  he  was  about  to 
leave  the  Court  of  King  Brude,  the  powerful  Druid, 
Broichan,  told  him  that  on  that  day  he  could  not 
depart,  for  that  he  (Broichan)  would  raise  a  contrary 
wind,  and  bring  down  the  darkness  of  mist  from  the 
mountains.  Columba  replied  that  all  our  actions 
are  in  the  hands  of  God,  who  would  do  as  seemed  to 
Him  fit.  On  the  day  fixed,  as  the  Druid  had  foretold, 
a  contrary  wind  arose  and  increased  to  a  tempest, 
while  great  darkness  came  down  upon  the  lake  (Loch 
Ness).  But  Columba,  despite  the  murmurs  of  the 
sailors,  embarks,  orders  the  canvas  to  be  spread  in  the 
teeth  of  the  gale,  and  sails  his  boat  triumphantly 
agaifist  the  wind,  to  the  amazement  of  the  assembled 
crowd.  Adamnan,  commenting  on  this,  observes  that 
it  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  that  God  should  at  times 
permit  the  demons  to  exercise  their  power  upon  the 


BELIEF    IN    THE   SUPERNATURAL.  lOI 

winds  and  waves.  There  is  no  attempt  at  explaining 
the  storm  on  that  day  by  suggesting  that  it  was  a  coin- 
cidence, any  more  than  there  is  an  attempt  to  ration- 
aUze  the  wonder  of  Columba's  navigation,  as  some 
might  do,  by  supposing  him  to  be  saiHng  "  very  close 
to  the  wind."i 

Now,  if  we  succeed  in  reconstructing  in  imagination 
the  then  existing  conditions  of  social  life,  I  think  we  shall 
be  satisfied  that  it  must  have  been  far  easier  to  effect 
the  conversion  of  the  people  on  the  principles  accepted 
by  Columba  and  his  followers  than  it  would  have  been 
had  the  missionaries  attempted  to  show  that  the  much- 
honoured  magi  were  mere  impostors,  and  the  prevailing 
faith  in  the  supernatural  utterly  baseless.  As  it  was, 
the  missionaries  admitted  the  reality  of  the  heathen 
miracles,  but  declared  that  He  whom  they  served 
could  do  yet  greater  things,  and  manifest  His  superior 
power.  There  is  no  escaping  the  conclusion  that  the 
Celtic  missionaries  and  the  Fathers  of  the  Celtic 
Church  were  themselves  unhesitating  believers  in  what 
would  in  our  time  be  regarded  as  puerile  superstitions. 
But  we  may  well  believe  that  in  the  providence  of  God 
such  a  nearness  of  intellectual  level  between  teacher 
and  taught  materially  assisted  their  evangelistic  labours. 
And  we  are  instructed  in  the  lesson,  which  we  shall 
again  and  again  have  to  bear  in  mind,  that  a  great 
body  of  baseless  superstitions  may  be  held  compatibly 
with  large  measures  of  Divine  truth,  with  the  most 
sincere  piety,  and  with  high  intellectual  ability  and 
acumen. 

^    Vita  S.  Colunilhc^  lib.  ii.,  c.  35. 


102  THP:   CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

On  the  part  of  most  modem  writers  dealing  with 
the  lives  of  the  great  pioneers  of  the  Faith  in  Britain, 
there  seems  to  be  a  shrinking  from  telling  those 
portions  of  their  histories  that  indicate  the  wide 
difference  in  the  intellectual  standpoints  of  those  times 
and  of  these.  The  feeling  is  prompted,  I  dare  say,  by 
the  sentiment  of  reverence  for  those  great  servants  of 
God.  Yet  I  am  sure  that  if  we  only  attain  to  a  true 
understanding  of  the  situation,  neither  respect  nor 
reverence  will  be  wanting,  even  when  we  are  at  first 
tempted  to  smile  at  the  grotesque  forms  in  which 
the  beliefs  of  those  distant  days  very  frequently  took 
their  shape. 

The  conversion  of  the  Northern  Picts  was  the  great 
triumph  of  Columba's  missionary  efforts.  The  labours 
involved  in  this  undertaking  are  unfortunately  scarcely 
touched  by  his  biographers  ;  but  we  can  gather  that 
his  whole  life  was  one  full  of  activity,  and  occupied  by 
many  interests.  Beside  his  toils  among  the  heathen, 
there  were  many  toils  among  his  Christian  brethren  of 
the  mainland  and  of  the  neighbouring  islands.  His 
own  community  on  lona  held  a  place  of  first  import- 
ance in  his  heart.  But  the  care  and  oversight  of  very 
many  daughter  monasteries  and  churches  in  the  islands 
and  in  Ireland  could  not  be  escaped ;  and  we  find  him 
not  confining  himself  to  his  island  home,  but  from  time 
to  time,  as  the  occasion  required,  visiting  the  Western 
Isles,  the  mainland  of  Scotland,  and  even  Ireland. 
Affairs  of  general  interest,  at  times  affair:-,  of  political 
interest,  would  lay  hold  on  him.  Thus  he  takes  the 
important  step  of  ''ordaining"  Aidan  to  be  King  of 


IRISH    UAKDS.  103 

Dalriada,  although  the  right  of  succession  and  his 
private  preference  indicated  another  for  that  dignity. 
Again,  in  the  year  575,  he  attends  a  great  gathering  of 
chieftains  and  ecclesiastics  held  at  Drumceatt  (situated 
not  far  from  Nevvtown-Limavady,  in  the  county 
Londonderry).  He  accompanied  the  King  of  British 
Dalriada,  and  was  himself  attended  (if  we  may  trust 
the  saint's  poetical  panegyrist,  Dalian  Forgaill)  by 
twenty  bishops,  forty  priests,  fifty  deacons,  and  twenty 
students.  At  this  "  Synod  "  of  Drumceatt-^a  very  im- 
portant assembly,  which  is  said  to  have  lasted  for 
fourteen  months — Columba  helped  lo  effect  the  ex- 
emption of  the  settlers  in  Albanian  Dalriada  from  the 
payment  of  tribute  to  the  chief  King  of  Ireland. 
Another  result  of  the  intervention  of  Columba  on  this 
occasion  is  said  to  have  been  the  mitigation  of  the 
harsh  measures  which  it  was  designed  to  apply  to  the 
Irish  "  bards  " — a  class  hitherto  formally  recognized, 
and  possessing  important  privileges.  The  "  bards " 
were  at  this  time  extremely  numerous,  and  vexatiously 
exacting  in  their  demand  for  maintenance  for  them- 
selves and  their  retinue^  as  they  travelled  through  the 
country.  Any  reluctance  to  yield  to  their  requests  was 
met  by  a  threat  that  satirical  verses  could  be  readily 
produced,  and  might  prove  disagreeable.  In  fact,  the 
"  bards  "  had,  by  their  large  numbers  and  by  their  ex- 
cessive greed  and  annoyance,  become  a  nuisance,  and 
the  Irish  Congress,  or  "  Synod,"  was  about  to  abate 
the  nuisance  by  abolishing  the  order  of  the  bards  alto- 

^  6W;^/'>'/tv/(  =  refection)  was  the  name  euphemistically  given  to 
this  claim  of  the  bards. 


104  '^'HE   CELTIC   CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

gether.^  Columba  successfully  pleaded  for  them,  and 
laid  down  limitations  as  to  the  number  of  followers  to 
be  allowed  to  each  bard,  with  a  view  to  lessening  the 
grievance  not  unnaturally  complained  of.'^  On  this 
occasion  also,  Columba  exerted  himself  to  obtain  the 
release  from  captivity  of  Scannlan  Mor,  a  prince  of 
Ossory.  In  the  attempt  he  was  perhaps  unsuccessful, 
but  we  see  from  the  proceedings  at  Drumceatt,  what  is 
elsewhere  confirmed,  that  Columba  possessed  a  force 
and  vigour  of  character  that  was  capable  of  display- 
ing itself  in  social,  public,  and  state  affairs,  not  less 
than  in  the  more  obscure  field  of  missionary  effort  and 
of  ecclesiastical  economics  and  government.  Had 
Columba  lived  in  later  days  and  amid  different  sur- 
roundings, he  might  perhaps  have  presented  to  us,  in 
one  aspect  of  his  character,  the  figure,  as  we  may 
imagine,  of  a  great  cardinal  or  other  powerful  prelate, 
adroit  in  state-craft,  and  zealous  in  advancing  the 
claims  of  the  party  \vhich  he  had  espoused.  Nor  do  I 
think  there  is  anything  improbable  in  the  supposition 
that  Columba  was  concerned,  after  the  founding  of  the 
settlement  in  lona,  in  the  battle  of  Coleraine,  fought 
on  account  of  a  dispute,  probably  about  ecclesiastical 
jurisdiction,  between  him  and  St.  Comgall,  of  Bangor.^ 
The  name  of  Columba  is  also  connected,  though  in  a 
less  definite  way,  with  a  third  battle,  fought  only  ten 

^  ^dh,  the  Irish  king,  liad  already  issued  against  them  a 
decree  of  banishment. 

2  It  was  in  gratitude  for  Cohimba's  exertions  on  behalf  of  the 
bards  that  their  head,  Dalian  Forgaill,  composed  his  Amhra 
Choluinuhille,  or  Praises  of  Columkille,  see  p.  iii. 

^  In  County  Down,  on  Belfast  Lough. 


TRIDAL    gUARRELS.  I05 

years  before  his  death,  between  the  northern  and 
southern  branches  of  the  Hy  Neill.  At  this  distance 
of  time,  and  with  little  or  no  information  as  to  the  cir- 
cumstances, we  are  quite  incapable  of  forming  a  judg- 
ment on  the  Tightness  or  wrongness  of  Columba's 
supposed  participation  in  these  quarrels  and  the  con- 
sequent bloodshed.  We  know  that  in  days  of 
savagery  or  semi-barbarism  it  is  not  uncommon  to  find 
that  physical  force  is  the  only  remedy  that  can  be  em- 
ployed against  the  violence  of  injustice.  And  we  have 
to  remember,  as  already  observed,  that  the  sentiment 
of  the  time  was  in  no  degree  outraged  or  wounded  by 
members  of  the  monastic  brotherhoods  bearing  arms 
and  engaging  in  the  bloody  wars  of  tribal  factions.^ 

The  quick,  high-spirited,  and  passionate  natural 
temperament  of  this  great  man  must  not  be  dropped 
out  of  sight  if  we  are  to  do  him  justice.  But  it  is  to 
other  aspects  of  his  character  that  we  more  readily 
turn.  His  spirit  of  self-denial,  his  devotion  to  the 
cause   of  Christ,   his  considerateness  for  others,   his 

^  "It  was  not  until  804  that  the  monastic  communities  of. 
Ireland  were  formally  exempted  from  military  sei'vice.  .  .  . 
That  even  among  themselves  the  members  of  powerful  com- 
munities were  not  insensible  to  the  spirit  of  faction  appears  from 
numerous  entries  in  the  ancient  annals.  Of  these,  two — of  which 
one  relates  to  a  Columban  house — may  here  be  adduced  as  ex- 
amples :  A.D.  673,  'A  battle  was  fought  between  the  fraternities 
of  Clonmacnois  and  Durrow,  where  Dermod  Duff  was  killed  .  .  . 
with  200  men  of  the  fraternity  of  Durrow  .  .  .'  A.D.  816,  'A 
battle  was  fought  by  Cathal,  son  of  Dunlang,  and  the  fraternity 
of  Tigh-Munna,  against  the  fraternity  of  Ferns,  in  which  400 
were  slain.'"  lleeyes'  Introduction  to  Adamnan  s  Life  of  St. 
Coluniba,  xlviii.  {Historians  of  Scotland,  vol.  vi.).  Other  illus- 
trations may  be  found  in  Prof.  Stokes'  Ireland  and  the  Celtic 
Church.  Lectures  V.  and  X. 


I06  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

affection  and  tenderness  for  the  brethren,  his  kindness 
even  to  dumb  animals,  and  similar  traits,  make  us  able 
to  understand  how  it  was  that  he  secured  the  enthusi- 
astic love  of  the  members  of  the  fraternity  at  lona,  and 
indeed  of  all  his  monasteries. 

"What  did  St.  Columba  look  like?"  some  one  may 
ask.  "  What  do  we  know  of  his  personal  appearance  ?  " 
Questions  of  this  kind  are  the  first  I  myself  wish  to 
have  answered  when  I  come  to  study  any  man's 
biography.  "  What  like  was  he  ?  "  was  the  question 
which  the  great  historical  painter — if  I  may  not  call  him 
the  great  historian — Thomas  Carlyle,  was  wont,  more 
Scoticano,  to  ask  about  each  character  of  the  past  that 
caught  his  fancy.  In  a  letter  of  Carlyle's  which, 
though  little  known  as  being  buried  ten  fathom  deep 
in  the  Froceedmgs  of  one  of  our  learned  societies, 
is  full  of  interest,  we  read  :  "  I  have  to  tell  you,  as  a 
fact  of  personal  experience,  that  in  all  my  poor 
historical  investigations  it  has  been,  and  always  is,  one 
of  the  most  primary  wants  to  procure  a  bodily  like- 
ness of  the  personage  inquired  after ;  a  good  Portrait, 
if  such  exists;  failing  that,  even  an  indifferent  if 
sincere  one.  In  short,  any  representation,  made  by  a 
faithful  human  creature  of  that  face  and  figure  which 
he  saw  with  his  eyes,  and  which  I  can  never  see  with 
mine,  is  now  valuable  to  me,  and  much  better  than 
none  at  all  .  .  .  Often  I  have  found  a  Portrait  superior 
in  real  instruction  to  half-a-dozen  written  'Biographies,' 
as  biographies  are  written;  or  rather,  let  me  say,  I 
have  found  that  the  Portrait  was  as  a  small  lighted 
ca?idie  by  which  the  Biographies   could  for  the  first 


PORTRAIT    OF    COLUiMLA. 


107 


time  be  read,  and  some  human  interpretation  be  made 
of  them  ;  the  Biographical  Personage  no  longer  an 
impossible  Phantasm  or  distracting  Aggregate  of 
inconsistent  rumours."  ^ 

Now,  a  contemporary  portrait  of  Columba,  in  the 
sense  here  intended  by  Carlyle,  we  do  not  possess ; 
nor,  if  we  did  possess  one,  would  it  be  of  much  value, 
for  however  admirably  skilled  the  Irish  decorative 
artists  were  in  other  directions,  they  seem  to  have 
been  ostentatiously,  even  grotesquely,  indifferent  to 
any  exactness  of  realism  in  the  attempted  portraiture 
of  the  human  face  and  figure.  All  we  can  do  then  is 
to  look  for  some  vivid  description  of  the  personal  ap- 
pearance of  this  great  missionary  and  saint,  and  failing 
that,  to  piece  together  as  best  we  may  the  incidental 
notices  that  help  to  show  us  in  any  degree  what 
manner  of  man  he  was.  Even  in  this  respect,  un- 
fortunately, the  material  is  scanty,  and  lacking  in  the 
definiteness  and  precision  that  our  age  so  eagerly 
demands.  We  may  perhaps  believe  that  Columba  was 
tall  and  dignified  in  bearing,  and  that  he  had  brilliant 
eyes,  as  later  authorities  aver.  Adamnan  tells  he  was 
"  like  an  angel  in  appearance,"  and  was  ''  endeared  to 
all,  for  a  holy  joy  always  beamed  from  his  countenance 
manifesting  the  inner  gladness  with  which  the  Holy 
Spirit  filled  his  heart."  - 

A  powerful  voice  of  great  sweetness  is  referred  to 

^  Letter  to  David  Laing  on  the  subject  of  Scottish  Historical 
Portraits,  Proceedings  of  the  Society  of  Antiquaries  of  Scotland^ 
vol.  i.,  part  iii. 

-  Vita^  sectmda  Prefalio. 


Io8  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND, 

more  than  once,  and  the  distance  at  which  the  words, 
and  even  syllables,  were  distinctly  heard  when  he  sang 
the  Psalms  seemed  to  his  biographers  to  point  to  the 
miraculous — more  especially,  as  to  those  who  stood  in 
the  church  with  him  his  voice  did  not  seem  louder 
than  the  voices  of  others. ^  The  advantages  of  such  a 
sonorous  and  yet  musical  voice  to  a  preacher,  many  of 
whose  sermons  must  have  been  delivered  in  the  open 
air,  was  doubtless  very  great.  There  are  other  sug- 
gestions in  Adamnan's  Life  of  Columba  of  a  physical 
vigour  and  energy,  which  independently  we  might  be 
led  to  suspect  from  the  laborious  character  of  the 
career  of  the  saint. 

The  outHnes  of  his  mental,  moral,  and  spiritual 
portrait  may  be  more  clearly  gathered.  When  the 
head  of  a  large  and  widespread  community  commands, 
as  Columba  did,  the  respect  and  admiration  as  well  as 
the  affection  of  its  members,  we  cannot  doubt  his 
possession  of  many  intellectual  endowments.  His 
biographer  represented  the  general  sentiment  when  he 
declared  that  Columba's  intellectual  abilities  were  of 

^  "The  voice  of  the  venerable  man,  when  singing  in  the  church 
with  the  brethren,  raised  in  a  marvellous  manner,  was  heard 
sometimes  at  a  distance  of  four  stadia,  that  is  500  paces,  some- 
times at  a  distance  of  eight  stadia,  that  is  1000  paces."  The 
poet  Dalian  Forgaill  may  be  excused  for  the  poetic  licence 
of  augmentation  when  he  sang — 

*'  The  sound  of  his  voice,  Columcille's, 
Great  its  sweetness  above  all  clerics  ; 
To  the  end  of  fifteen-hundred  paces, 
Vast  spaces,  it  was  clear." 

Adamnan  is  careful  to  note  that  this  peculiarity  was  only  rarely 
observed. 


INTELLECTUAL    ENDOWMENTS.  TOQ 

the  highest  order  and  his  practical  wisdom  great. ^ 
His  tenderness  and  readiness  to  sympathize  with  the 
sorrows  and  joys  of  others,  united  with  a  certain 
reserve  and  dignity  that  are  not  commonly  found  in 
combination  with  etfusive  sympathies,  made  a  marked 
feature  in  his  character.  His  indignation  at  injustice 
and  cruelty,  his  affection  for  the  brethren,  his  more 
than  perfunctory  hospitality  to  strangers,  are  constantly 
showing  themselves  in  the  incidents  of  his  life  as 
recorded  by  his  successor.  Like  a  true  Celt,  as  he 
was,  he  gave  ready  expression  to  his  emotions.  We 
read  of  his  smiles  and  his  tears — sometimes  of  tears 
in  copious  abundance.  Columba  has  been  accused 
even  by  admirers  ^  of  a  vindictive  temper ;  and  the 
evident  satisfaction  with  which  his  biographer  multi- 
plies instances  where  men  of  violence,  murderers,  and 
oppressors  of  the  innocent  were  overtaken  by  death  or 
misfortune,  as  foretold  by  the  saint,  seem  at  first  to  the 
hasty  reader  to  lend  colour  to  the  charge.  But  the 
exact  line  where  righteous  indignation  ends  and  the  sin 
of  vindictiveness  begins  it  is  not  easy  for  the  moralist 
to  define.  The  wild  life  of  that  period  of  miserable 
disorder  was  not  such  as  to  promote  the  growth  of  the 
gentler  virtues  among  any  who  were  brought  into 
contact  with  it.  It  was  certainly  not  personal  slights 
or  indignities,  as  such,  but  wrong  and  injustice  to  others 
that  ordinarily  roused  the  anger  of  Columba.^ 

^  "Ingenio  optimus,  consilio  magnus,"  Sccunda  Pntf. 
"^  For  example,  by  Montalembert. 

"  Again,  his  biographer  represents  the  saint  rather  as  pre- 
dicting than  as  invoking  a  just  retribution  upon  wrong-doers. 


no  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

The  laborious  and  untiring  industry  of  Columba  is 
testified  to  by  Adamnan.  Not  an  hour  of  the  day 
passed  without  its  occupations  in  prayer,  or  reading,  or 
writing,  or  some  other  task.  His  fastings  and  his 
vigils  were  carried  to  an  extent  that  seemed  to  surpass 
the  powers  of  man's  endurance,  and  yet  he  maintained 
the  sweetness  and  the  brightness  of  disposition  that  do 
not  always  accompany  vigorous  self-discipline.^  He 
had  all  the  tender  and  passionate  affection  of  the  Celt 
for  the  land  of  his  birth.  Again,  his  widely  diffused 
benevolence  did  not  check  the  ardour  of  devoted 
personal  friendships. 

Nor  can  we  pass  over,  as  contributing  to  the  fullness 
of  the  portrait,  glimpses  that  show  us  a  real  sympathy 
with  the  brute  creation.  For  example,  Columba  on 
one  occasion  gives  directions  to  one  of  the  brethren  to 
feed  and  tend  a  poor  crane,  which,  completely  ex- 
hausted by  its  long  flight  from  Ireland,  fell  upon  the 
western  shore  of  the  island  of  lona;^  while  the  story 
has  been  often  told  how,  on  the  evening  before  the 
death  of  the  saint,  the  pack-horse  that  used  to  carry 
the  milk-vessels  to  the  monastery,  thrusting  his  nose 
into  the  bosom  of  the  aged  man  as,  in  his  weariness, 
he  rested  himself  by  the  road-side,  received  from  his 
grateful  heart  a  farewell  benediction. ^ 

Any  one  who  reads  Adamnan's  Life  of  St.  Cohutiha 
will  not  regard  the  praises  Dalian  Forgaill  bestowed 
upon  his  memory  as  a  mere  professional  eloge.     The 

^  Seainda  Prcufat. 

'  Adaimiait,  lib.  i.,  c.  35. 

''  hi.,  lib.  i.,  c.  24. 


PERSONAL    INFLUENCE.  TIT 

words  of  the  bard  are  felt  in  the  main  to  express  just 
the  impression  which  the  study  of  the  biography  has 
left  behind,  and  they  arc  comparatively  free  from  the 
mere  generalities  of  epitaph  laudation.  Mr.  Skene 
thus  cites  the  words  of  the  poet,  who  describes  the 
people  as  mourning  over  him  who  was  "  their  souls' 
light,  their  learned  one,  their  chief  from  right, — who 
was  God's  messenger,  who  dispelled  fears  from  them, 
who  used  to  explain  the  truth  of  words, — a  harp  with- 
out a  base  cord,  a  perfect  sage  who  believed  in  Christ ; 
he  was  learned,  he  was  chaste,  he  was  charitable;  he 
was  an  abounding  benefit  of  guests,  he  .was  eager,  he 
was  noble,  he  was  gentle,  he  was  the  physician  of  the 
heart  of  every  sage  ;  he  was  to  persons  inscrutable ;  he 
was  a  shelter  to  the  naked,  he  was  a  consolation  to  the 
poor;  there  went  not  from  the  world  one  who  was 
more  continual  for  a  remembrance  of  the  cross."  ^ 

It  has  been  claimed  for  one  of  the  greatest  men  of 
letters  in  modern  Europe  -  that  his  heart,  which  few 
knew,  was  as  great  as  his  intellect,  which  all  knew.  I 
shall  not  venture  to  say  whether  in  that  particular  case 
facts  justify  the  claim.  But  it  is  certain  that  great 
and  widespread  personal  influence  has  been  oftenest 
found  where  the  warmth  of  the  affections  and  the  rich- 
ness and  sensibility  of  the  emotional  side  of  nature  bulk 
large  in  combination  with  intellectual  capacity  and 
force  of  purpose.  It  is  then  that  those  with  whom 
a  great  man  comes  in  contact  become  not  only  his 

^  Amhra  CholnimchilU,   as  cited  by  Skene,  Celtic  Scotland, 
vol.  ii.,  p.  145. 
'■'  Goethe. 


112  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

admiring  disciples,  but  his  ardent  and  enthusiastic 
followers.  The  affection,  the  loyal  personal  devotion 
which  he  inspires,  far  outweighs  in  practical  value  the 
ill-effects  that  are  produced  by  the  occasional  errors  of 
a  hasty  judgment,  and  of  an  impulsive  and  eager 
temperament.  Columba's  influence  was  due,  we  can 
scarcely  doubt,  in  large  measure  to  his  combining  in 
his  own  person  the  various  and  rarely  united  sources 
of  power  to  which  I  refer. 

Columba's  labours  included  several  voyages  to 
Ireland,  and  journeys  among  the  Irish  monasteries. 
He  also  at  times  penetrates  into  the  country  of  his 
converts,  the  Picts,  beyond  "  the  dorsal  ridge  of 
Britain."  From  time  to  time,  probably  for  the  sake 
of  retirement  and  opportunities  for  more  undistracted 
devotion,  he  visits  and  sojourns  for  a  while  in  the  little 
island  of  Hinba,  which  Reeves  and  Skene  would 
identify  with  Eilean-na-Naoimh,  a  little  further  to  the 
south  of  lona,  north-west  of  Scarba,  and  where  the 
ruined  remains  of  a  little  church  and  of  two  bee-hive 
cells  are  still  to  be  seen.^ 

His  was  a  busy  life  of  unceasing  labour.  After 
thirty  years  in  lona  had  been  completed,  he  seems  to 
have  felt  his  infirmities  crowding  upon  him.  He  told 
his  disciples  that  for  many  days  he  had  been  praying 
for  his  release  that  he  might  go  to  his  "heavenly 
fatherland."  But,  as  he  added,  "the  prayers  of  many 
churches"  had  gone  up  to  God  that  he  might  stay 
longer  with  them,  and  four  years  were  to  be  added  to 
his  life.  At  the  completion  of  the  four  years  his  end 
'   See  p.  294. 


LAST    DAYS    OF    COLUMBA.  113 

was  approaching.  Following  the  account  of  Adamnan, 
and  for  the  most  part  merely  translating  his  words,  we 
learn  the  affecting  story  of  the  saint's  last  days.  It 
seems  to  me  to  possess  a  singular  air  of  truthfulness ; 
and  I  give  it  in  all  its  quaint  simplicity.  One  day  in 
the  month  of  May,  the  old  man,  now  worn-out  with 
age,  was  drawn  in  a  cart  to  visit  the  brethren  at  work 
in  the  western  plain  of  the  island,  about  a  mile  from 
the  monastery,  and  calling  them  to  him  he  began  to 
say,  "During  the  Paschal  solemnities  in  April  with 
desire  I  desired  to  depart  to  the  Lord  Christ,  as  He 


had  granted  that  I  should  if  I  preferred  it.  But  lest 
for  you  the  festival  of  joy  should  be  turned  into 
mourning,  I  chose  to  put  off  a  little  longer  the  day  of 
my  departure  from  the  world."  At  this  saying  the 
monks  were  deeply  grieved,  and  he  sought  as  well  as 
he  could  to  cheer  them  with  words  of  consolation. 
And  then,  still  seated  in  the  cart,  he  turned  his  face 
to  the  east,  and  blessed  both  the  island  and  them 
that  dwelt  therein.  When  he  had  finished  the  words 
of  blessing  he  was  carried  back  to  the  monastery.     A 


114  'I'HE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTJ.AND. 

few  days  afterwards,  when  he  was  celebrating  mass  as 
usual  upon  the  Lord's  Day,  the  face  of  the  venerable 
man,  as  his  eyes  were  raised  to  heaven,  seemed 
brightened  with  a  ruddy  glow.  Afterwards,  in  answer 
to  the  inquiries  of  the  brethren,  he  told  them  how  he 
had  seen  the  angel  of  the  Lord,  who  had  come  "  to 
seek  for  a  certain  deposit  dear  to  God."  At  a  later 
time  they  came  to  understand  that  he  spoke  of  his 
own  soul. 

The  following  Saturday  {dies  Sabbati)  was  the  last 
day  of  his   life.     On   that  day,  accompanied  by  his 
faithful  and  attached  attendant,  Diarmit,  the  vener- 
able man  went  to  bless  the  neighbouring  barn.     And, 
when  he  had  entered,  he  blessed  the  barn  and  two 
heaps  of  winnowed  corn  that  were  in  it ;  and  then  he 
spoke  these  words  in  thanksgiving:    "I  rejoice  ex- 
ceedingly, my   children   of  the   monastery   {ino?iachi 
familiares)^  that  this  year  also,  if  I  must  depart  from 
you,  ye  will  have  a  supply  sufficient  for  the  year." 
And  when  Diarmit   heard   him  thus  speak,  he  said, 
"O  Father,    thou  grievest   us   by  so   often   making 
mention  of  thy  departure."     The  saint  made  answer, 
"  I  have  a  secret  to  tell  thee  in  few  words,  and  if 
thou  wilt  faithfully  promise  to  disclose  it  to  no  one 
before  my  decease,   I   shall  be  able  to  speak  more 
plainly  about  my  departure."      When   Diarmit   had 
promised  on  bended  knees,  as  the  saint  desired,  the 
venerable  man  spoke  and  said,  "  This  day  is  called  in 
the   sacred   books    the   Sabbat/i,   whicli,    being    inter- 
preted, is  Rest ;  and  to  me  in  very  truth  this  day  is 
the  Sabbath,  for  it  is  for  me  the  last  day  of  this  life  of 


FORETELLS    HIS    DEATH. 


1^5 


toil,  the  day  upon  which,  after  the  anxieties  and 
troubles  of  my  labours,  I  go  to  rest  {sabbatizo).  In 
the  middle  of  this  approaching  night  of  the  sacred 
Lord's  Day  I  shall,  in  the  language  of  the  Scriptures, 
go  the  way  of  our  fathers  ;  for  now  my  Lord  Jesus 
Christ  vouchsafes  to  call  me,  and  to  Him,  I  say,  who 
calls  me,  in  the  middle  of  this  night  shall  I  depart. 
For  so  it  has  been  revealed  to  me  by  the  Lord  Him- 
self." When  his  attendant  heard  these  sad  words  he 
began  to  weep,  while  the  saint  tried  to  comfort  him 
as  well  as  he  could. 

After  this  the  saint  comes  forth  from  the  barn ;  and 
as  he  returned  towards  the  monastery  and  had  gone 
half-way,  he  sits  down  at  the  place  where  afterwards 
the  cross  was  erected,  fixed  in  a  mill-stone,  where  it 
may  be  seen  at  this  day,  says  Adamnan,  by  the  side 
of  the  road.  And  while  the  saint,  wearied  with  age, 
was  sitting  there,  and  resting  a  little  while,  the  white 
horse,^  that  obedient  servant  that  had  been  accus- 
tomed to  carry  the  milk-vessels  backwards  and 
forwards  between  the  cow-shed  and  the  monastery, 
approached,  and  coming  close  to  the  saint — strange 
to  say — laid  his  head  in  the  saint's  bosom  and  began 
to  whine,  and,  like  a  human  being,  to  shed  tears  in 
abundance  upon  the  breast  of  the  saint,  and  with 
water  dropping  from  his  mouth  began  to  make  his 

^  A  recent  writer  relating  this  incident  calls  the  animal  an 
"old"  horse.  But  a  horse  may  be  "white  "  without  being  old. 
The  same  writer,  a  few  lines  later,  exercising  the  same  spirit 
of  reading  into  the  narrative  his  own  fancies,  tells  us  that  "at 
midnight  he  (Columba)  crept  into  the  chapel."  Now  that  is 
what  might  be  ^^ell  supposed  of  a  sick  old  man  ;  but  the  original 


Il6  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

moan.  Diarmit  wanted  to  drive  off  the  sorrowing 
creature,  but  the  saint  forbade  him,  saying,  "Suffer  him, 
suffer  him,  since  he  loves  me,  to  pour  out  his  grief  into 
my  bosom.  Thou,  though  thou  art  a  man  with  a  rational 
soul,  could  in  no  way  have  known  of  my  departure  if  I 
had  not  told  thee ;  but  to  this  brute  and  unreasoning 
animal  the  Creator  in  His  own  way  has  revealed  that 
his  master  is  about  to  leave  him."  And  then  he  blessed 
the  sorrowing  horse  as  he  turned  away  from  him. 

After  this  the  saint  arose,  and  ascending  the  little 
hill  above  the  monastery,  he  stood  for  a  little  on  its 
top,  and  standing  there,  he  lifted  up  both  his  hands 
and  blessed  the  monastic  buildings,  saying,  "  This 
place,  though  it  be  mean  to  look  at  and  narrow  in 
its  bounds,  shall  be  honoured  with  great  and  distin- 
guished honour,  not  only  by  the  kings  and  people  of 
the  Scots,  but  by  the  rulers  of  barbarous  and  foreign 
nations  with  their  subject  peoples.  And  even  the  saints 
of  other  churches  shall  hold  it  in  great  reverence." 

After  these  words  he  descended  the  Httle  hill,  and 
returning  to  the  monastery,  he  sat  writing  the  Psalter 
in  his  hut  ;  and  when  he  came  to  that  versicle  of  the 
thirty-third  Psalm  ^  where  it  is  written,  "  They  that  seek 
the  Lord  shall  want  no  manner  of  thing  that  is  good," 
he  said,  *'  Here  at  the  end  of  the  page  I  must  stop  ; 
and  what  follows  let  Baithene  write."  At  this  point 
Adamnan  interposes  his  comment,  that   as   the   last 


tells  us  that  he  ran  in  before  the  rest,  and  if  one  were  disposed 
to  rationalize,  we  may  suppose  that  a  coroner's  jury  would  have 
attributed  the  saint's  death  to  a  failure  of  the  action  of  the  heart. 
^  In  our  English  versions,  Psalm  xxxiv.  9. 


LAST    COMMANDS.  Tiy 

verse  written  by  St.  Columba  was  very  appropriate  to 
one  about  to  enter  on  the  good  things  of  the  eternal 
kingdom,  so  the  next  was  equally  appropriate  to  the 
new  abbat,  father  and  teacher  of  his  spiritual  children 
— "  Come,  ye  children,  and  hearken  unto  me  :  I  will 
teach  you  the  fear  of  the  Lord." 

When  the  saint  had  completed  writing  the  verse, 
he  entered  the  church  for  the  vesper  office  preceding 
the  Lord's  Day,  and  when  it  was  finished  he  returned 
again  to  his  little  chamber,  and  rested  for  the  night 
on  his  bed,  where  he  had,  instead  of  straw,  a  bare  flag 
with  a  stone  for  a  pillow,  which  at  this  day,  adds 
Adamnan,  stands  like  a  kind  of  monument  beside  his 
grave.^  While  he  was  resting  thus  upon  his  bed  he 
gave  his  last  commands  to  the  brethren ;  but  Diarmit, 
his  attendant,  was  the  only  one  who  heard  him  speak- 
ing. "O  my  children,"  said  he,  "receive  ye  these 
last  words  of  mine.  Have  peace  and  unfeigned 
charity  among  yourselves ;  and  if  ye  thus  follow  the 
examples  of  the  holy  fathers,  God,  the  Comforter  of 
the  good,  will  be  your  helper.  And  I,  dwelling  with 
Him,  will  intercede  for  you.  And  He  will  not  only 
supply  you  with  a  sufficiency  of  the  things  needed  for 
this  life  present,  but  will  also  bestow  on  you  the 
eternal  rewards  prepared  for  them  that  keep  His  com- 
mandments." After  these  words,  as  Adamnan  goes 
on  to  relate,   the  holy  man  kept  silence.      And  at 

^  The  visitor  to  lona  may  see  deposited  in  the  east  end  of  the 
cathedral  a  rounded  stone,  which  it  has  been  found  necessary  to 
protect  from  relic-loving  tourists  by  an  iron  cage.  This  is  shown 
as,  and  may  be  in  fact,  "  St.  Columba's  pillow." 


Il8  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

midnight,  when  the  bell  sounded,  he  rose  in  haste  and 
passed  to  the  church,  and  running  more  quickly  than 
the  others,  he  entered  alone,  and  on  bended  knees  he 
knelt  beside  the  altar  in  prayer.  His  attendant, 
Diarmit,  with  some  others,  as  they  were  coming  up 
a  little  after,  saw  the  whole  building  filled  with  a 
heavenly  light,  but  when  they  came  to  the  door  the 
light  faded  suddenly.  Then  Diarmit,  entering,  called 
repeatedly  in  a  voice  broken  with  sorrow,  '•  Where  art 
thou,  father  ?  "  And  before  the  brethren  had  brought 
the  lights,  feeling  his  way  in  the  darkness,  he  found 
the  abbot  lying  in  front  of  the  altar.  He  lifted  him 
up  a  little,  and  sitting  beside  him,  propped  his  holy 
head  upon  his  bosom.  In  the  meantime  the  body  of 
the  monks  ran  in  with  the  lights ;  and  when  they  saw 
their  father  dying  they  burst  into  lamentations.  Then 
Diarmit  raised  the  holy  right  hand  of  the  saint  that 
he  might  bless  the  assembled  monks.  And  the 
venerable  father  himself  at  the  same  time  moved  his 
hand  as  well  as  he  could,  so  that,  though  he  could 
not  speak,  he  might  by  the  motion  of  his  hand  be 
seen  to  bless  the  brethren. ^  After  which  he  immedi- 
ately expired.  Then  the  whole  church  resounded 
with  loud  lamentations  of  grief.  When  the  matin 
hymns  were  finished,  the  body  was  carried  by  the 
monks,  chanting  Psalms  as  they  went,  from  the  church 
to  the  little  hut ;  and  after  three  days  of  solemn 
obsequies,  it  was  laid  to  rest  in  the  burial-ground  of 

^  We  have  instances,  in  the  Life,  of  Columba  making  tlie  sign 
of  the  cross  in  blessing  (lib.  ii.  15,  28,  30),  and  this  last  action 
of  his  was  in  all  probability  an  attempt  to  make  the  accustomed 
movement  of  the  hand. 


DEATH    OF    COLUMBA.  ITQ 

the  monastery.  Such  is  the  account  given  us  by 
Adamnan  of  the  closing  hours  of  a  holy  and  noble 
life.  Dr.  Reeves,  after  a  careful  chronological  inves- 
tigation, decides  that  the  death  of  the  saint  took  place 
"just  after  midnight  between  Saturday  the  eighth  and 
Sunday  the  ninth  of  June  in  the  year  597."  ^ 

The  greater  monasteries  of  the  Columban  monks 
were,  with  the  exception  of  lona,  all  situated  in 
Ireland  ;  but  some  smaller  foundations  were  to  be 
found  scattered  in  the  western  and  northern  islands 
of  Scotland  and  in  Pictland.  We  know  that  in  the 
life-time  of  St.  Columba,  Tiree  had  its  houses  ;  there 
was  a  house  for  a  few  of  the  brethren  at  Eilean-na- 
Naoimh,  and  a  monastery  at  Oronsay  may  perhaps  be 
attributed  to  the  same  date.  Our  records  are  so 
scanty  that  we  can  say  little  for  certain  as  to  the 
spread  of  the  Columban  houses  in  Scotland.  Aber- 
nethy  and  Dunkeld  may  have  been  early  Columban 
foundations ;  but  the  numerous  dedications  of  churches 
in  the  mainland  and  the  northern  islands  afford  but 
hazardous  grounds  for  any  sure  conclusion.^  The 
church  of  Lismore,  in  the  long  and  narrow  island  of 
that  name,  which  lies  in  the  mouth  of  Loch  Linnhe, 
and  is  now  daily  skirted  by  steamers  from  Oban  going 

^  In  the  Booke  of  Common  Prayer  for  the  Use  of  the  Church  of 
Scotland,  1637,  Columba  is  commemorated  in  the  Kalendar  at 
June  9,  following  the  example  of  the  medii\:?val  Church, 

-  Dr.  Reeves  gives  a  list  of  thirty-two  "Columbian  founda- 
tions" in  Scotland,  and  considers  that  the  list  "admits  of  con- 
siderable enlargement,"  but  veiy  many  of  those  recorded  are  no 
more  than  churches  dedicated  under  the  name  of  the  saint,  and 
may  date  from  a  period  long  subsequent  to  St.  Columba. 


I20  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

north,  is  supposed  to  have  been  founded  in  the  life- 
time of  Columba  by  a  bishop,  Moluag  by  name.^  It 
was  in  after  times  the  seat  of  the  bishopric  of  Argyll. 
Another  contemporary  foundation  was  Kingarth  in 
the  south  of  the  island  of  Bute  ;  here,  too,  the  founder 
was  a  bishop.  Another  missionary  contemporary  of 
Columba  was  St.  Donnan,  who  settled  in  the  island 
of  Eigg.  There  are  several  Kildonans  among  the 
Scottish  churches ;  and  doubtless  this  is  largely  due  to 
his  having,  according  to  the  common  account,  ob- 
tained the  glory  of  martyrdom.  It  is  strange  with 
what  little  opposition  Christianity  won  its  way  in 
Scotland;  but  in  this  case  Donnan  and  fifty-two  of 
his  monks  fell  victims  to  the  fury  of  the  "queen"  of 
the  island ;  though  it  should  be  stated  that,  according 
to  another  account,  they  suffered  death  at  the  hands 
of  pirates.  An  Irish  legend,  which  recurs  in  part  in 
the  Breviary  of  AherdeeJi^  assigns  the  origin  of  the 
Church  in  Aberdeen  to  a  disciple  of  St.  Columba, 
Machar  by  name.  He  was  a  bishop,  and  set  out  with 
twelve  companions  to  preach  the  gospel.  He  was 
ordered  to  travel  till  he  came  to  a  river  which  exhib- 
ited a  curve  like  a  bishop's  crosier.  This  sign  he 
found  near  the  mouth  of  the  river  Don  at  Aberdeen, 
where  the  cathedral  was  afterwards  dedicated  under 
his  name.  Another  missionary,  named  Maelrubha,  a 
monk  of  St.  Comgall's  monastery  at  Bangor,  settled 
(673)  at  Apurcrossan  (Applecross,  in  Ross-shire),  where 
he  presided  for  forty-nine  years.  The  Irish  accounts 
represent  him  as  dying  a  natural  death  ;  but  it  is  pro- 
1  See  pp.  307,  312. 


MONASTIC    FCUNDATIONS.  T2T 

bably  due  to  the  Scottish  story  of  his  martyrdom  by 
Norwegians  that  dedications  to  him  are  numerous  in 
^Scotland.  It  is  interesting  to  note  tliat,  however  great 
the  fame  of  Cokniiba  justly  is,  other  independent 
missionaries  of  monastic  foundations  distinct  from  his 
had  their  share  in  the  work  of  evangelizing  Scotland. 
Those  who  desire  further  information  and  further 
conjectures  will  consult  the  pages  of  Reeves  and  of 
Skene.i 

^  As  to  Maehubha.  see  more  particularly  Dr.  Reeves'  paper 
ill  the  Proceedings  of  the  Society  of  Antiquaries,  Scotland,  vol. 
iii,,  p.  258.  This  saint  is  said  to  have  founded  a  church  on  one 
of  the  islands  in  the  beautiful  lake  in  Ross-shire,  Lochniaree, 
which  takes  its  name  from  him. 


CHAPTER   VII. 

lONA  :  ITS  PHYSICAL  FEATURES — THE  CONSTITUTION 
OF  THE  COLUMBAN  "FAMILY''  —  LIFE  IN  THE 
15ROTHERHOOD    AT    lONA. 

loNA  is  a  small  island  about  three  and  a  half  miles 
long  (in  length  lying  north-east  and  south-west),  and 
in  its  widest  part  about  a  mile  and  a  half  in  breadth. 
It  is  separated  from  the  great  island  of  Mull  ^  by  a 
deep  and  narrow  channel,  or  "  sound,"  about  a  mile 
broad,  through  which  the  tides  run  with  much  force. 
It  presents  to  the  Atlantic  a  bold  front,  with  outposts 
of  isolated  crag,  or  rocky  islets,  on  the  north-western, 
south-western,  and  southern  side.  From  the  south 
the  heights  slope  down  by  a  heather-covered  surface 
of  great  irregularity  to  the  middle  of  the  island,  where 
a  comparatively  flat  plain  (the  corn-fields  of  the 
monastery)  runs  from  the  western  to  the  eastern  shore. 
Then  the  level  again  rises. 

On  the  eastern  side,  close  to  the  shore,  and  a  little 
north  of  the  central  plain,  stood  the  monastery  of  St. 
Columba.     To  the  north-west  of  the  monastery  is  the 

^  This  island  is  twenty-four  miles  long  and  thirty  miles  broad, 
and  as  seen  from  lona  is  indistiiiiruishable  from  the  maiiihind. 


PHYSICAL    FEATURES    OF    lONA.  I  23 

highest  point — a  rocky  hill  rising  to  over  300  feet,^ 
known  as  Dunii.-  From  this  height  on  a  clear  day 
(which,  in  the  moist  climate  that  prevails,  the  visitor 
will  find  of  less  frequent  occurrence  than  could  be 
wished),  a  magnificent  prospect  is  obtained.  To  the 
west  is  the  wide  sweep  of  the  Atlantic;  on  the  east 
are  the  red-granite  cliffs  of  the  Ross  of  Mull,  the  trap 
terraces  of  Bourg,  and,  further  inland,  the  mountain 
of  Benmore,  rising  to  a  height  of  over  3000  feet. 
When  the  air  is  very  clear  the  jagged  faint  blue  out- 
line of  the  Coollin  Hills  of  Skye  may  be  distinguished 
in  the  far  north  ;  while  the  Paps  of  Jura  may  be  seen  in 
the  south  rising  over  the  near  Ross  of  Mull.  The  dis- 
tance between  these  two  extreme  points  north  and  south 
is  ninety-six  miles.  Many  other  islands  are  visible  in 
the  distance,  while  the  islet  of  Staffa  is  so  close  at 
hand  that  the  characteristic  columnar  formation  of  its 
basalt  rocks  is  readily  distinguishable  through  the  glass.-" 
In  the  choice  of  their  settlements  the  Irish  monks 
seem  to  have  looked  for  islands  not  very  remote  from 
the  mainland.  Avoiding  the  greater  islands,  of  which 
they  could  not  hope  to  secure  exclusive  possession, 
and  which  would  not  supply  the  security  and  the 
isolation  which  they  sought,  tliey  made  their  selection 
from  among  those  that,  without  being  very  large,  were 
yet  sufficiently  extensive  to  supply  wholly,  or  in  the 

^  The  Ordnance  Survey  gives  the  height  as  327  feet. 

2  Pronounced  Doon-ee,  with  the  accent  on  the  last  syllable. 

•'  For  further  details,  see  the  minute  and  accurate  description 
given  by  Skene  {Celtic  Scotland,  vol.  ii.,  p.  89  sq.).  See  also  the 
charming  and  most  vivid  account  of  the  island  and  its  surround- 
ings in  the  Duke  of  Argyll's  lona. 


124  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

main,  the  tillage-ground  and  pasture  required  for  the 
maintenance  of  the  community.^ 

Columba  landed  in  a  little  bay  or  creek-  in  the 
south  of  the  island,  but  his  monastery  was  constructed 
about  two  miles  farther  north,  and  if  not  situated 
exactly  in  the  places  occupied  by  the  mediaeval  build- 
ings and  enclosures  that  now  remain,  was  certainly 
only  a  little  removed  from  them." 

The  original  monastery  would  seem  to  have  been  of 
wood,  or  of  wattles  and  clay.  If  bee-hive  cells  of  stone 
then  or  afterwards  occupied  the  ground,  their  material 
would  probably  have  been  used  in  the  construction 
of  the  mediaeval  buildings.  No  vestige  of  the  original 
structure  can  now  be  distinguished. 

If  we  would  picture  to  ourselves  what  the  monas- 
tery at  lona  looked  like  in  the  days  of  Columba,  we 
must  fancy,  at  a  distance  of  some  two  or  three  hun- 
dred yards  from  the  shore,  a  large  enclosure,  sur- 
rounded by  a  high  rampart  or  embankment  {vallum) 
constructed  of  earth  or  perhaps  of  a  mixture  of  earth 
and  stone.^     Within  this  rampart  was  a  space  round 

^  It  would  appear  that  as  the  community  at  lona  grew  in 
numbers,  it  was  necessary  to  supplement  home  supplies.  Even 
in  Cohimba's  time,  Tiree  (the  Ethica  Insula  of  Adamnan)  had 
become,  according  to  Reeves,  "  the  farm-land  of  the  mother 
island."     Historians  of  Scotland,  vol.  vi.,  p.  309. 

-  Known  now  as  Port-na-chnn-aich  (or  port  of  the  coracle), 
marked  by  a  brilliantly-coloured  beach  of  "green  serpentine, 
green  quartz,  and  the  reddest  felspar  "  (Duke  of  Argyll's  lona, 
p.  80).    It  has  been  lately  asserted  that  jade  has  been  found  there. 

^  About  a  quarter  of  a  mile  to  the  north  of  the  pi"esent  remains, 
as  Skene  contends,  see  Celtic  Scotland,  vol.  ij.,  p.  100. 

■*  The  rampart  or  cashell  (a  corruption  of  the  Latin  castcllnm) 
in  some  Irish  monasteries  was  as  much  as  fifteen  feet  high  and  nine 
or  ten  feet  broad. 


MONASTERY    AT    lONA.  125 

which  the  lodgings  of  the  monks  were  situated,  and 
somewhat  apart  from  the  rest,  on  a  little  rising  knoll, 
was  the  hut  {turgurioliini)  of  the  abbat.  The  church, 
close  by,  with  a  little  room  abutting  on  it,  and,  as  it 
would  seem,  having  a  door  on  the  outside,  and  also  one 
opening  into  the  church,  like  many  of  our  modern 
vestries,  was  probably  the  largest  building  on  the 
island.  There  were  also  a  refectory,  and  one  or  more 
guest-chambers,  and  without  the  enclosure,  a  mill,  a  kiln, 
a  cow-shed,  a  stable  for  one  or  more  horses,  and  a  barn. 
A  large  community  on  a  small  island,  however 
sparing  in  their  diet,  must  have  had  some  difficulty  in 
finding  an  adequate  supply  of  provisions.  The  land  on 
the  western  part  of  the  centre  of  the  island  was  in 
tillage.  In  the  harvest-time  we  read  of  the  labouring 
monks  reaping  and  bringing  back  loads  of  corn  on 
their  backs.  There  were  sheep  on  the  island.  The 
cows  may  have  been  numerous,  and  their  milk  was 
largely  used.^  "  Fish  were  abundant,  and  could  be 
obtained  at  all  seasons.  The  large  flounders  of  the 
Sound  of  lona  are  still  an  important  item  in  the  diet 
of  the  people.  The  rocks  and  islets  all  around 
swarmed  with  seals,  and  their  flesh  seems  to  have 
been  a  favourite  article  of  food."  -  One  of  the  alleged 
instances  of  Columba's  prophetical  powers  relate  to 
his  foretelling  the  depredations  made  by  a  robber  in  a 

1  In  our  own  day  the  island,  we  know,  could  maintain  more 
than  200  cows  and  140  calves,  about  6co  sheep  and  25  horses, 
beside  some  pigs.  Duke  of  Argyll's  lona^  p.  92,  edit. 
1889. 

2  Duke  of  Argyll,  ut  supra.  The  statement  that  seal's  flesh 
was  "  2l  favourite  article  of  food  "  seems  unsupported. 


T26  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

breeding-ground  of  seals,  which  belonged  to  the 
monastery.!  The  food  resources  of  the  island  were 
supplemented  by  the  corn-land  of  the  neighbouring 
island  of  Tiree. 

As  might  be  expected,  boats,  large  and  small,  of 
pine  and  oak,  or  of  wicker  covered  with  skin  {mrac/is), 
propelled  by  oars,  or  with  sails,  figure  largely  in  the 
history.  Indeed,  again  and  again  the  narrative 
of  Adamnan,  even  in  its  unconscious  romancing,  has 
caught  and  reflected  with  singular  truth  the  varying 
tints,  the  light  and  shadows,  the  life  and  movement,  the 
grace  and  mystery  of  the  shifting  currents  of  the  ocean 
among  the  western  islands.  Whiffs  of  the  sea  breezes 
reach  us  with  their  briny  odour.  The  authentic  note 
of  a  dweller  among  the  impressive  surroundings  of 
his  island  home  may  be  caught  in  almost  every  page.- 

It  is  worth  observing  that  the  familiar  name  by  which 
St.  ColumbaVisland  is  now  commonly  known  seems  to 
have  arisen  through  an  error  of  transcription  on  the 
part  of  copyists.  The  name  habitually  given  to  the 
place  by  Adamnan  is  the  "  lovan  island  "  {loiia  insula). 
So  it  appears  in  the  earliest  extant  manuscript  of  the 
Life,  that  of  Reichenau,  assigned  to  the  beginning  of  the 
eighth  century,  that  is,  close  to  the  date  of  the  death  of 
the  author  (703).  In  this  form  the  word  appears  also 
in  the  two  next  oldest  manuscripts  of  the  Life — one  of 
the  ninth,  and  the  other  of  the  tenth  century.     Any 

^   Viia^  lil).  i.,  c.  33. 

-  In  the  summer  of  1889  I  spent  two  delightful  days  upon 
the  island,  in  company  with  the  Bishop  of  Argyll.  We  each  had 
a  copy  of  Reeves' .•^</(i'/////<///,  and  felt  that  it  could  be  but  half 
appreciated  when  read  elsewhere. 


ORIGFN    OF    THE    NAME    lONA.  1 2"] 

one  familiar  with  the  difficulty  of  distinguishing  u  from 
?iy  as  written  in  mediaeval  texts,  will  see  at  once  how 
the  error  may  have  crept  in.  But  it  was  fostered  by 
some  confusion,  such  as  we  find  in  our  Scottish  his- 
torian, John  Fordun,  arising  probably  from  the  stress 
laid  by  Adamnan,  in  the  beginning  of  his  work,  on  the 
fact  that  /o7ia  (Jonah  of  the  Old  Testament)  and 
Coliitnba  mean  the  same  thing — the  one  being  the 
Hebrew,  and  the  other  the  Latin,  for  a  "dove." 

In  the  early  Irish  records  the  name  of  the  island 
appears  as  la,  Hya,  or  Hy.  And  this  last  form 
(pronounced  ee)  is  still  used  in  reference  to  the  island 
by  the  Gaels  of  the  Western  Highlands. 

i\damnan's  Life  of  St  Cohwiba,  naturally  enough,  as 
written  not  for  the  information  of  later  ages,  but 
primarily  for  the  use  of  his  contemporary  brethren  of 
the  monastery,  enters  into  no  detailed  account  of  the 
constitution  of  the  establishment,  or  of  the  every-day 
life  of  the  community.  But  much  may  be  gathered 
by  the  careful  student  from  incidental  allusions  scat- 
tered in  abundance  through  the  work.  Dr.  Reeves  has, 
in  a  masterly  way,  grouped  together  such  occasional 
references,  and  illustrated  them  from  the  stores  of  his 
copious  erudition.  In  what  follows  I  have  seldom 
done  much  more  than  extract  the  more  important 
features  of  his  exhaustive  discussion. 

(i)  It  is  very  doubtful  whether  Columba  composed 
any  systematic  Rule  like  that  of  his  great  contemporary, 
the  founder  of  the  Benedictines.  But  there  is  every 
reason  to  believe  that  the  brethren  were  bound  by 
the  rules  of  Obedience,  Chastity,  and  Poverty.     The 


128  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

authority  of  the  abbat  extended  to  all  the  members 
of  the  community,  whether  living  in  Hy — the  insula 
priniaria — or  in  the  daughter  and  affiliated  houses,  the 
heads  of  which  all  received  their  charge  from  him. 
The  whole  community  was  known  in  Irish  as  the 
Muiiitir  Choluimchille^  or  Family  of  Columkille. 

(2)  The  founder  named  his  own  successor,  his  cousin 
Baithene;  and  it  was  not  till  after  the  year  716  that 
a  free  election  of  the  head  appears  to  have  been  allowed. 
Of  the  first  eleven  abbats  in  succession  to  Columba, 
nine  were  certainly  of  the  same  family  as  Columba, 
and  only  one  was  certainly  not  of  "  founder's  kin." 
The  founder's  successor  was  styled  the  Coniarl?,  or 
Heir,  of  Columkille.  The  word  cotnarb^  which  is 
pronounced  almost  as  if  written  co-arb,  is  explained  by 
Dr.  J.  H.  Todd  {St.  Patrick,  p.  155)  as  follows :— The 
word  ''properly  signifies  co-heir  or  inheritor;  co- 
heir or  inheritor  of  the  same  lands  or  territory,  which 
belonged  to  the  original  founder  of  a  church  or 
monastery ;  co-heir  also  of  his  ecclesiastical  or 
spiritual  dignity.  In  the  absence  of  territorial  desig- 
nations, this  term  was  employed  in  the  Irish  Church  to 
designate  bishops  or  abbats  who  were  the  successors 
or  inheritors  of  the  temporal  and  spiritual  privileges 
of  some  eminent  Saint  or  founder.  Thus  the  co-arb 
of  St.  Patrick  was  the  bishop  or  abbat  of  Armagh ; 
the  co-arb  of  Columkille  was  the  abbat  of  Hy ;  the 
co-arb  of  Barre  was  the  bishop  or  abbat  of  Cork  .  .  . 
The  Bishop  of  Rome  himself  is  frecjuently  called 
co-arb  of  Peter,  and  sometimes  also  abbat  of  Rome, 
showing   how  completely  the   abbatial  and   co-arban 


CONSTITUTION    OF    THE    FAMILY.  T29 

.luthority,  implying,  as  it  did  in  Ireland,  the  rank  of  a 
feudal  lord  of  the  soil  and  chieftain  over  the  inhabitants 
of  the  soil,  swallowed  up,  as  it  were,  and  obscured  the 
accident  of  a  co-existing  episcopal  or  sacerdotal  char- 
acter in  the  co-arb  or  spiritual  chieftain."  Sometimes 
the  term  A?'d-comarb,  or  chief  co-arb,  is  met  with.  Thus, 
while  there  were  co-arbs  of  Columba  at  the  Columban 
monasteries  of  Derry,  Durrow,  and  Swords,  the  ard- 
co-arb  of  Columba  was  the  Abbat  of  Hy. 

(3)  Perhaps  it  was,  as  suggested  by  the  name  Abbat 
(or  Father)  applied  to  the  head,  that  the  body  of  the 
monks  (and  sometimes  even  those  who  lived  as  serfs 
or  clansmen  on  the  territory  of  the  abbat)  were  styled 
t\\Qfa7nily  {itmintir,  familid).  And  certainly  as  regards 
Columba  himself  and  his  followers,  the  relations,  as 
disclosed  in  the  Life,  were  those  of  constant,  affec- 
tionate, and  watchful  care  on  the  one  part,  and  of  filial 
reverence  on  the  other.  It  would  be  difficult  to  find 
anywhere  a  more  beautiful  picture  of  loving  solicitude 
and  loving  and  reverential  obedience  than  is  revealed 
by  innumerable  unconscious  touches  in  the  work  of 
the  saint's  biographer.  Some  of  the  monks  are  spoken 
of  as  "  seniors,"  but  I  cannot  satisfy  myself  whether 
they  formed  a  distinct  class,  or  were  so  termed  only  on 
account  of  their  age  or  standing  in  the  monastery. 

(4)  The  monastic  Hfe  in  our  records  is  frequently 
spoken  of  as  a  "warfare  "  {militia),  and  the  term"  soldier 
of  Christ "  {iniles  Christi)  is  a  term  very  commonly 
used  when  it  is  meant  to  designate  a  monk,  for  which 
it  is  indeed  employed  as  a  simple  equivalent.  It  was 
a  name  that  would  doubtless  have  special  significance 


130  THE   CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

and  special  attractions  in  that  warlike  age.  The 
monastery,  with  its  surrounding  cashcU  or  rampart, 
was,  indeed,  in  more  senses  than  one,  a  fortress. 

(5)  The  Hfe  of  the  monk  was  primarily  and 
essentially  a  devotion  to  the  warfare  of  Christ  in  the 
world,  but  the  weapons  of  that  warfare  were  not  carnal. 
Prayer,  praise,  and  the  hearing  of  God's  Word  formed 
a  large  part  of  the  daily  duties  of  the  community.  I 
do  not  know  that  we  need  doubt  that  the  services  of 
the  "  canonical  hours  "  were  duly  held,  with  perhaps 
the  exception  of  "  compline."  Vespers,  a  night 
service,  and  matins  are  very  clearly  referred  to.  The 
references  to  the  lesser  "day  hours  "  are  less  distinct. 

The  Holy  Eucharist  was  celebrated,  it  would  seem, 
only  on  Sundays  and  festivals,  and  on  special  occasions 
at  the  order  of  the  abbat. 

(6)  Even  if  the  spiritual  advantages  of  physical 
labour  had  not  been  fully  appreciated,  yet  much 
manual  work  was  absolutely  necessary  for  the  main- 
tenance of  the  community.  And  so  we  have  abundant 
references  that  show  us  that  much  time  was  expended 
in  the  island  upon  agriculture  and  the  tending  of 
cattle.  The  monks  are  shown  ploughing,  sowing, 
reaping,  storing  the  corn,  and  grinding  it  into  flour. 
A  mill  and  a  kiln  are  mentioned.  A  Saxon  monk 
in  Columba's  time  officiated  as  baker.  Both  cows 
and  sheep  appear  on  the  island,  and  milk  seems 
to  have  formed  an  important  part  of  the  diet  of 
the  establishment.  Fish,  too,  are  caught ;  and  the 
care  and  management  of  boats  of  all  sizes  must 
have  occupied  the  time  of  many  of  the  brotherhood. 


LIFE    IN    THE    rSROTHERHOOD. 


T3T 


We  possess,  too,  a  very  clear  and  interesting  reference 
to  the  skill  shown  by  the  monks  of  the  island  in 
working  in  metals  (lib.  ii.,  c.  30). 

(7)  Wednesdays  and  Fridays  were  ordinarily  ob- 
served as  fasts,  but  this  rule  did  not  extend  to  the 
weeks  between  Easter  and  Pentecost.  The  forty  days 
of  Lent  were  kept.  It  is  an  interesting  feature  to 
observe  that  a  relaxation  of  a  fast  was  permitted  to 
the  community  in  welcoming  a  stranger  to  the  island. 

(8)  The  monks  slept  on  beds  covered  apparently 
with  straw;  but  the  great  founder,  even  to  the  day 
of  his  death,  slept  on  the  bare  rock  with  a  stone 
for  his  pillow.  Dr.  George  Petrie  {Round  Towersy 
p.  426)  mentions  that  in  the  upper  apartment  of 
the  building  known  as  St.  Columba's  house  at  Kells, 
a  flat  stone  is  shown,  six  feet  long,  which  is  called 
"St.  Columba's  penitential  bed." 

In  Adamnan's  Life  there  is  no  detailed  description 
of  the  dress  of  the  monks,  but  they  seem  to  have 
worn  an  inner  garment  called  the  tunic;  and 
Columba's  cowl  {ciiculla)  is  expressly  mentioned, 
but  in  such  a  connection  that  it  seems  to  me  to 
suggest  that  either  the  ordinary  monks  did  not  at 
that  time  wear  the  cowl,  or  that  Columba  wore  one 
of  a  distinctive  shape  or  colour.^  The  monks  appear 
to  have  worn  sandals. 


1  "  One  of  the  wicked  associates  (of  the  sons  Conall)  was 
instigated  by  the  devil  to  rush  on  the  saint  with  a  spear  on 
purpose  to  kill  him.  To  prevent  this,  one  of  the  brethren, 
named  Findhigan,  put  on  the  saint's  cowl  and  interposed, 
being  ready  to  die  for  the  holy  man."     Vita^  lib.  ii.,  c.  25. 


132  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

{9)  It  is  not  unlikely  that,  as  in  so  many  monas- 
teries, there  may  have  been  at  lona,  in  Columba's 
day,  a  school  for  the  instruction  of  youths ;  but 
the  solitary  mention  of  one  Berchan,  "a  pupil 
(alunmus)  learning  wisdom"  (lib.  iii.,  c.  22),  would 
seem  to  be  too  slight  a  foundation  upon  which  to 
build  a  confident  conclusion. 

(10)  The  references  to  the  copying  of  books  are 
numerous.  The  saint  himself  is  frequently  described 
as  thus  occupied.  And  even  in  the  feebleness  of 
his  old  age,  on  the  evening  preceding  his  death, 
on  returning  to  his  hut  after  what  is  described  as 
a  fatiguing  visit  for  the  aged  man  to  the  barn,  he 
sat  down  to  his  task  of  transcribing  the  Psalter, 
and  continued  till  he  reached  the  foot  of  the  page. 
In  an  earlier  part  of  the  history  we  find  Baithene, 
who  was  afterwards  his  successor,  seeking  for  one 
of  the  brethren  who  would  collate  and  correct  a 
copy  he  had  made  of  the  Psalter.  When  the 
collation  had  been  made,  it  was  found  that  the  copy 
was  perfect  but  for  a  single  omission  of  the  letter  / 
(lib.  i.,  c.  17).  Beside  Psalters,  we  have  it  recorded 
(lib.  ii.,  c .  8)  that  Columba  wrote  with  his  own  hand 
a  "  Book  of  Hymns  for  the  week  "  {hy??morum  liber 
septimaniormji).  And  other  transcriptions  are  else- 
where mentioned  (lib.  ii.,  c.  45).  There  is  no  hint, 
so  far  as  I  have  observed,  of  the  transcriptions 
being  adorned  with  artistic  decoration ;  and  though 
I  am  conscious  of  the  danger  of  an  argument  from 
silence,  yet  I  can  hardly  doubt  that  anything  like 
the  elaborate  ornament  we  are  familiar  with  in  some 


HOSPITALITY    TO    STRANGERS.  133 

Irish  manuscripts   would  certainly  have    been  noted 
by  the  biographer. 

(11)  The  chief  subject  of  study  was  the  Holy 
Scriptures,  as  well  with  the  abbat  as  with  other 
members  of  the  community ;  and  there  is  an  inter- 
esting story  of  how,  on  one  occasion,  some  of  the 
difficulties  of  the  Word  of  God  upon  which  he  had 
meditated  were  supernaturally  made  clear  to  the 
saint. 

(12)  The  abbat  maintained  such  a  measure  of 
reserve  as  became  his  dignity.  He  not  only  slept, 
but  studied  and  wrote,  in  his  little  hut  somewhat 
apart  from  the  main  body  of  the  buildings.  There 
he  was  attended  by  his  faithful  servant  and  com- 
panion, Diarmit.  And  sometimes  we  find  two  of 
the  brethren  standing  in  attendance  at  the  door  of 
the  hut.  Strangers  arriving  at  the  island  had  for- 
mally to  request  an  interview  (lib.  i.,  c.  2). 

(13)  Strangers  visiting  the  island  were  numerous, 
and  were  received  with  hearty  hospitality.  Water 
was  provided  for  the  washing  of  their  feet,  and  the 
guest-chamber  was  made  ready  for  them.  Of  Bai- 
thene,  the  saint's  successor,  we  are  told  expressly 
not  only  that  he  was  "holy  and  wise,  and  experienced 
both  in  teaching  and  writing,"  but  that  he  was 
affahilis  et  peregrinis  appetibilis. 

(14)  Voyages  of  the  monks  to  the  neighbouring 
islands,  to  the  mainland,  and  to  Ireland,  are  of 
frequent  occurrence.  Timber  had  to  be  fetched 
from  a  considerable  distance.  Messages  from  the 
abbat   had   to   be   conveyed,    and    often    excursions 


134  '^HE   CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

were  made  across  the  great  mountain  ridge  that 
forms  the  Scottish  water-shed  into  the  remoter  regions 
of  the  Picts. 

These  notices,  drawn  almost  exclusively  from 
Adamnan's  Life  of  Columba,  may  suffice  to  give 
some  distinct  conception  of  the  constitution  of  the 
monastery  and  of  the  life  of  the  brotherhood  of  Hy. 
The  consideration  of  the  position  of  bishops  in  the 
ancient  Scotic  Church  will  be  dealt  with,  and  some 
account  of  certain  peculiarities  of  ritual  observance 
will  be  given,  in  separate  chapters. 


135 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

THE  HISTORICAL  CHARACTER  OF   ADAMNAN's  'LIFE   OF 
ST.    COLUMBA  '  :    THE    MIRACULOUS    ELEMENT. 

The  work  of  Adamnan,  to  which  the  Christian 
Church  is  so  deeply  indebted  for  the  story  of  the  life 
of  St.  Columba,  invaluable  as  it  is  for  the  unquestion- 
ably truthful  glimpses  of  the  ecclesiastical  and  social 
life  of  a  remote  and  obscure  period  of  Church  history, 
is  written  in  a  manner  that  is  very  unsatisfactory  and 
often  vexatious  to  the  student  who  would  follow  in 
consecutive  order  the  narrative  of  the  saint's  career. 
The  Life  is  divided  into  three  books,  arranged  on  a 
somewhat  artificial  system.  The  first  is  devoted  to 
recounting  instances  of  Columba's  powers  of  prophecy, 
the  second  to  his  miracles,  and  the  third  to  super- 
natural appearances  connected  with  the  saint,  such  as 
visions  of  angels  seen  by  him,  or  the  visits  of  angels 
to  him  as  seen  by  others,  or  the  appearance  of 
heavenly  glory  around  his  head  or  on  his  face,  etc. 
And  as  regards  time  and  place,  the  various  occurrences 
here  detailed  are  hopelessly  jumbled  together. 

The  value  of  Adamnan's  work  really  consists  not 
in  what   he  was  most  desirous  to  tell,   but  in  what 


136  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

he  incidentally  lets  slip  or  alludes  to  in  passing.  For 
myself,  I  do  not  care  much  to  investigate  whether  it 
is  really  true  that  the  saint  prophesied  that  somebody 
would  knock  down  his  ink-horn  and  spill  his  ink.  I 
am  much  more  interested  in  the  fact  that  he  possessed 
an  ink-horn  (lib.  i.,  c.  19).  It  may  have  an  interest  for 
some  that  the  saint  blessed  a  knife  in  such  a  way  that 
it  would  never  wound  either  man  or  beast,  but  it  is 
to  me  more  interesting  to  know  that  the  monks  were 
so  skilled  in  the  working  of  metals  that,  in  complete 
faith  in  the  miraculous  property  of  the  knife,  they 
melted  it  down  and  were  able  to  apply  a  thin  coating 
of  the  metal  to  all  the  iron  tools  used  in  the  monastery 
(lib.  ii.,  c.  30).  Knowing  how  differently  different  men 
are  affected  by  the  same  evidence,  I  shall  not  scoff  at 
any  one  who  believes  that  a  formidable  wild  boar  in  a 
wood  in  the  island  of  Skye  fell  down  dead  at  the 
prayer  of  the  saint ;  but  I  am  myself  more  interested 
in  learning  that  the  wild  boar  was  hunted  in  Skye 
in  the  sixth  century  (lib.  ii.,  c.  27).  I  do  not  care  to  dis- 
cuss whether  it  is  really  true  that  on  the  occasion  of 
St.  Columba's  visit  to  the  monastery  of  Terryglas 
in  Tipperary,  the  locked  doors  of  the  church  flew 
open  at  the  word  of  the  saint ;  but  it  does  seem  worth 
noting  that  in  those  early  days  the  doors  of  the 
monastic  churches  had  their  fastening  of  lock  and  key 
(lib.  ii.,  c.  37).  Adamnan  records  how  Columba  super- 
naturally  detected  the  rank  of  a  disguised  pilgrim 
to  lona.  Whether  it  was  by  natural  or  supernatural 
agency  the  saint  discovered  the  truth,  it  is  to  all 
students  of  ecclesiastical  history  of  real  consequence 


ADAMNAN  S    'LIFE.  137 

to  know  the  fact  that  Cokimba  recognized  his  guest 
as  possessing,  on  account  of  his  rank  as  a  bishop, 
special  privileges  and  honours  in  the  ritual  of  the 
Church  not  allowed  to  presbyters  (lib.  i.,  c.  35). 

I  will  return  presently  to  the  miraculous  features  of 
the  story,  and  will  state  frankly  what  I  have  come, 
after  some  consideration,  to  think  about  them.  But  I 
must  here  repeat  that  the  Life  of  Adamnan  gives 
us  but  little  help  in  a  chronological  arrangement  of 
the  incidents  related.  We  can  gather,  however,  from 
the  narrative  enough  to  picture  to  ourselves  the  chief 
features  of  the  saint's  daily  round  of  duty.  How 
he  was  commonly  attended  in  his  little  hut,  built  a 
little  apart  from  the  other  buildings,  by  the  faithful 
Diarmit ;  how  he  occupied  much  of  his  time  in 
writing,  part  at  least  of  which  was  the  work  of 
transcribing  portions  of  the  Holy  Scriptures ;  how 
with  the  monks  he  attended  the  services  of  vespers  and 
matins  in  the  church  ;  and  how  to  the  church  the 
saint  repaired  when  he  felt  moved  to  make  special 
supplications  for  the  preservation  or  relief  of  friends 
in  danger  or  distress  ;  how  he  took  an  interest  in  the 
farm-work  of  the  monastery,  and  from  time  to  time 
inspected  it  himself;  how,  in  his  later  years,  as  his 
strength  failed,  he  was  drawn  about  in  a  little  cart ; 
how  the  welfare  of  the  various  daughter-houses  was 
dear  to  his  heart  \  and  how  very  frequent  were  com- 
munications between  lona  and  its  dependencies. 
These  and  scores  of  other  precious  pieces  of  infor- 
mation we  gather  from   the  Life. 


138  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

There  can  be  no  question  that  even  in  his  hfetime 
Columba  was  ahnost  universally  looked  on  with 
profound  respect  and  veneration.  On  his  proposing, 
for  example,  to  visit  St.  Ciaran's  monastery  of  Clon- 
macnois,  the  whole  body  of  the  monks  of  that 
establishment,  both  those  engaged  in  the  fields  and 
those  occupied  in  duties  within  their  walls,  assembled 
in  the  enclosure  and  went  out,  headed  by  the  abbat, 
to  meet  the  saint,  "  as  if  he  had  been  the  angel  of  the 
Lord."  When  Columba  came  within  sight  they  bowed 
themselves  with  their  faces  to  the  ground,  and  when 
they  met  him  they  saluted  him  with  kisses  of 
reverential  affection.  Hymns  and  praises  were  then 
sung  as  they  walked  in  procession  towards  the  church. 
And  to  prevent  the  saint  being  inconvenienced  by  the 
pressure  of  the  crowd,  he  was  protected  by  being 
placed  under  a  kind  of  wooden  canopy  borne  by  four 
men  walking  beside  him  (lib.  i.,  c.  3). 

Nor  can  there  be  a  doubt  that  even  in  his  lifetime 
Columba  was  very  generally  regarded  as  possessing 
the  power  to  work  miracles,  or  by  his  prayers  to  obtain 
the  supernatural  aid  of  Heaven.  I  am  also  satisfied 
— and  this  is  a  most  important  fact,  if  it  be  established 
— that  Columba  was  himself  convinced  that  he  was 
granted,  at  least  in  some  measure,  the  powers  that 
were  attributed  to  him.  And  further,  I  am  satisfied 
that  his  biographer  Adam  nan,  who  wrote  the  Life^ 
perhaps  within  a  hundred  years  of  the  death  of  his 
hero,  was  not  himself  a  deliberate  inventor  of  fictions. 
And  yet,  after  having  read  all  that  is  alleged  about 
the  antecedent  probability  of  miracles  being  vouch- 


EVIDENCE    AS    TO    MIRACLES.  I  39 

safed  in  circumstances  like  those  of  St.  Columba,  I 
have  to  confess  that  I  am  not  satisfied  that  we  have 
evidence  before  us  as  to  the  miracles  of  a  kind  that 
ought  to  carry  our  judgment  to  a  verdict  of  "proven." 

Now,  though  I  acquit  Adamnan  himself  of  inventing 
miracles,  I  am  unable  to  acquit  of  blame  "  some  person 
or  persons  unknown,"  who,  either  by  gross  exaggeration 
of  facts  in  some  instances,  or  in  others  by  deliberately 
concocting  what  passed  for  facts,  have  largely  con- 
tributed to  the  material  of  this  biography.  I  am 
afraid  I  must  say  that  this  remark  applies  to  the  great 
majority  of  the  prodigies  with  which  the  book  abounds. 
A  few  can  be  accounted  for  by  a  mere  unconscious 
spirit  of  imaginative  amplification  exerted  to  do  honour 
to  a  holy  man.  Stories  went  from  mouth  to  mouth, 
and  grew  as  they  travelled.  When  listeners  are  found 
eager  to  believe,  story-tellers  will  not  be  over-scrupu- 
lous. And  to  have  been  sceptical  w^ould  in  those 
days  have  been  regarded  as  irreverence.  Think,  again, 
how  a  child  with  open  eyes  of  wonder,  and  with  no 
intention  to  deceive,  gives  an  account  absurdly  in- 
accurate of  something  strange  or  unusual  that  has 
happened.  His  own  fancies  and  fears  become  part 
of  the  history;  and,  without  moral  blame,  the  facts 
assume  the  shape  and  colour  of  the  marvellous. 

A  few  of  the  alleged  miracles  of  St.  Columba — 
though  I  have  to  admit  they  are  very  few — may  be 
accounted  for  on  natural  principles,  or  as  being  mere 
coincidences.  The  most  obstinate  unbeliever  need 
feel  no  interest  in  denying  that  Columba's  mother  had 
a  dream  before  the  child  was  born  about  an  old  man 


140  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

who  brought  her  a  beautiful  cloak,  which  was  after- 
wards carried  away  by  the  wind,  and  who  comforted 
her  by  telling  her  that  her  son  would  be  counted  as 
one  of  God's  prophets,  and  would  bring  innumerable 
souls  to  the  heavenly  country.^  And  it  may  very 
well  have  actually  happened  that  King  Oswald  dreamed 
that  Columba  came  to  him  and  promised  him  victory 
the  day  before  the  defeat  of  his  enemy.  Nor  am  I 
disposed  to  deny  that  some  "  wicked  and  blood-stained 
men,"  who  sang  in  Irish  the  songs  in  Columba's  praise, 
had  a  marvellous  escape  from  flame  and  sword,  while 
on  the  same  occasion  a  few  who  had  regarded  these 
songs  of  little  value  perished. ^  But  by  far  the  larger 
number  of  the  "miracles"  are,  in  my  opinion,  to  be 
regarded  as  valueless,  with  no  residuum,  or  only  the 
smallest  residuum,  of  fact  as  a  basis.  Adamnan,  when 
he  began  his  Life,  was  naturally  on  the  look-out  for 
miracles,  and  they  came  in  in  abundance.  They 
reach  us  generally  third  or  fourth  hand  ;  and  certainly, 
honest  as  he  was,  Adamnan  clearly  shows  that  he  had 
no  disposition  to  sift  them  thoroughly.  It  is  very 
interesting  to  note  that  the  one  marvel  which  he  him- 
self vouches  for  (the  occurrence,  some  fourteen  years 
before  the  time  of  his  writing,  of  copious  rain  after  a 
long  and  unusual  drought,  which  he  attributes  to  their 
shaking  three  times  in  the  air  a  tunic  that  had  been 
worn  by  the  saint,  and  the  reading  aloud  of  some  of 
the  books  written  by  the  saint's  hand)  need  not  neces- 

^  lib.  iii.,  c.  2. 

•^  It  is  plain  from  the  conclusion  of  the  story  that  these  car/nj/m 
were  used  as  charms  in  cases  of  danger. 


POPULAR    BELIEFS.  141 

sarily  be  accounted  for  by  a  suspension  of  the  ordinary 
laws  of  nature  (lib.  ii.,  c.  45).  It  is  also  of  much  interest 
to  observe  that  Adam  nan  makes  boast  that  the  stories 
which  popular  fame  had  made  current  could  not  stand 
comparison  with  the  wonders  which  he  had  to  relate. 
It  is  to  no  purpose  that  he  tells  us  that  in  some  cases 
he  followed  previous  writers.  These  may  have  been 
more  credulous  than  himself,  nay,  they  may  have  been 
dishonest,  as  he  certainly  was  not.  And  we  know 
nothing  of  the  capacity  or  intellectual  qualifications 
of  the  old  men  who  retailed  to  him  many  of  his 
stories  {Frafatio?ies). 

I  have  already  spoken  of  how  important  it  is  to 
the  investigator  to  be  familiar  with  a  wide  range  of 
hagiological  literature.  Legendary  types  have  a  singu- 
lar tendency  to  recur.  And  with  regard  to  the  lives 
of  Scotic  saints,  when  reading  the  bardic  stories  we 
find  ourselves  in  an  atmosphere  quite  akin.  It  was 
universally  felt  that  there  was  little  worth  relating  which 
was  not  a  marvel. 

As  illustrating  the  popular  beliefs  of  his  time,  the 
stories  related  by  Adamnan,  however  incredible,  are 
full  of  interest ;  and  much  more  is  to  be  learned  from 
them  than  many  modern  writers,  in  their  contemptuous 
impatience,  have  been  ready  to  acknowledge.  The 
stories  reflect  the  religious  notions  current  in  the 
writer's  day,  and  so  supply  us  with  a  most  precious 
source  of  information  as  to  a  period  of  the  history  of 
religious  thought  in  this  country  otherwise  singularly 
obscure.  Some  illustrations  of  this  truth  will  be 
offered  in  another  chapter.     It  is  not,  I  think,  less 


r42  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

interesting  to  know  what  men  believed  and  what  they 
thought,  than  what  kind  of  dress  they  wore,  what 
kind  of  houses  they  lived  in,  what  weapons  they 
carried,  and  what  food  they  ate. 

Again,  that  in  many  instances  unfavourable  winds 
shifted  round  to  a  favourable  point  after  the  prayer  of 
the  saint,  will,  in  our  own  day,  be  differently  regarded 
by  pious  men — that  is,  either  as  coincidences  or  as 
answers  to  prayer  in  a  region  of  physical  phenomena 
where  such  answers  are  still  vouchsafed.  Of  a  similar 
kind  is  the  account  of  the  fall  of  rain  after  the 
unusual  drought.  This  last  is,  I  think,  a  well- 
authenticated  story.  The  events  happened  only 
fourteen  years  before  Adamnan  wrote,  and  he  himself 
seems  to  have  been  present  on  the  occasion.  The 
months  of  March  and  April  had  been  without  rain, 
and  the  monks  feared  greatly  for  their  crops.  After 
consultation  they  resolved  to  go  out  among  the  corn- 
fields and  wave  three  times  in  the  air  the  white  tunic 
of  the  saint,  and  to  read  aloud  some  books  which  the 
saint  had  written  with  his  own  hand.  This  was  done, 
when  suddenly  the  sky  became  overcast,  and  pre- 
sently the  rain  fell  in  copious  abundance.  One  may 
accept  the  truth  of  the  narrative,  and  yet,  I  hope,  may 
not  be  suspected  of  irreverence  or  culpable  scepticism 
in  remarking  that  post  Jwc  is  sometimes  confounded 
with  propter  hoc. 

Cases  of  recovery  from  sickness  upon  the  prayer  of 
the  saint  are  not  matters  that  require  special  comment. 
But  I  have  to  confess,  with  respect  to  many  of  the 
alleged  miracles,  I  should  like  to  cross-examine  tlie 


CELTIC    SUPERSTITIONS.  I  43 

witnesses   before   accepting   the   testimony   that   has 
reached  us  second  or  third  hand. 

There  is  a  story  of  Samuel  Taylor  Coleridge,  which 
relates  that  on  some  occasion  when  he  was  asked,  did 
he  believe  in  ghosts,  he  replied,  "  I  have  seen  too 
many  of  them  to  believe  in  them."  And,  similarly, 
how  much  one  must  discount  from  the  stories  of  the 
Celtic  population  of  Ireland  and  the  Western  High- 
lands of  Scotland  can  only  be  learned  by  living  for 
some  considerable  time  among  these  people.  For 
myself,  I  have  lived  too  long  among  ghosts,  banshees, 
clurichauns,  merrows,  and  fairies,  the  interest  being 
occasionally  diversified  by  miraculous  cures  at  holy 
wells,  or  miraculous  appearances,  like  that  of  ''our 
Lady  of  Knock,"  to  estimate  testimonies  to  super- 
natural occurrences  with  the  seriousness  and  deliberate 
consideration  with  which  those  unfamiHar  with  such 
experiences  may  be  disposed  to  regard  them.  The 
disposition  to  bring  things  to  the  test,  to  be  thorough, 
to  get  at  the  bottom  of  a  wonderful  story,  was 
certainly  not  more  developed  in  the  sixth  century 
than  it  is  in  the  nineteenth.  The  testimonies  to 
the  supernatural  powers  associated  with  witchcraft  in 
the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries  are  immeasur- 
ably weightier  than  those  for  any  miracle  in  the  entire 
hagiology  of  Scotland  or  Ireland. 


144 


CHAPTER  IX. 

ST.    ADAMNAN  :    ION  A    IN    THE    EIGHTH    AND    NINTH 
CENTURIES. 

It  would  not  serve  the  purpose  I  have  in  view  to 
trouble  my  readers  with  a  list  of  the  succession  of  the 
abbats  of  lona.  The  only  name  of  outstanding 
eminence  is  that  of  the  ninth  in  order  from  Columba, 
his  biographer,  Adamnan,  who  tilled  the  office  of 
abbat  from  679  till  his  death  in  704,  when  he  had 
reached  seventy-seven  years  of  age.  On  his  father's 
side  Adamnan  was  of  the  family  of  Columba,  like 
whom,  he  appears  to  have  been  a  native  of  Donegal. 
He  attained  a  high  repute  for  piety  and  for  learning ; 
and  his  extant  writings  show  that  the  repute  was  not 
ill-founded. 

The  Northumbrian  prince,*  Aldfrid,  who  had  been 
in  exile,  probably  in  lona,  was  among  his  friends, 
and  on  at  least  two  occasions  he  visited  him  at  his  court 
at  Bamborough.  On  the  first  occasion  his  visit  was 
prompted  by  the  desire  to  obtain  the  liberation  of 
some  Irish  captives  ;  and  he  appeared  before  Aldfrid 
as  the  commissioned  ambassador  of  the  Irish  people. 
He  was  successful  in  his  mission,  and  returned   to 


ADAMNAN  S    VISIT    TO    ALDFRID.  1 45 

Ireland  with  sixty  of  his  fellow-countrymen.     On  the 
occasion  of  his  second  visit  to  Aldffid,  he  presented 
to  the  king,  as  it  would  seem,  a  copy  of  his  book, 
Concerjihig    the    Holy    Places,    of    which    we    shall 
presently  speak.     On  this  occasion,   too,  he  visited, 
among    other    churches,  that   of  Jarrow,  where   the 
abbat     Ceolfrid     discussed     with     him     the     vexed 
questions  of   the  Tonsure   and   Easter,    and   by  his 
arguments  and  winning  persuasiveness  converted  him 
to  the  Roman  view.    On  his  return  to  lona,  Adamnan 
sought  to  win  over  the  brotherhood  to  his  new  way 
of  thinking,   but    in  vain.     In   Ireland  he    was,    by 
arguments    urged    with     gentle     moderation,    more 
successful,    though    there    too    the    houses    of    the 
Columban  foundation  resisted  his  efforts.      In  697  he 
attended  a  synod,  or  rather  mixed  council  of  princes 
and  ecclesiastics,  held  at  Birr,  in  Ireland  ;  and  at  his 
instance   a  law,   afterwards  known    as   the  "  Law   of 
Adamnan,"    was    enacted,   which    for   the    first    time 
exempted  the  women  of  Ireland  from  the  obligation 
of  bearing  arms  and  going  to  battle.     He  also  took 
part    in    another    Irish    synod    at    Tara,    which    was 
attended     by     forty-seven     chiefs      and     thirty-nine 
ecclesiastics  ;  and  in  Ireland  he  spent  his  last  Easter, 
keeping    it    according    to    the    Roman   computation. 
He  returned  to  lona,  and  again  sought  to  persuade 
the  monks  to  adopt   his  views  on  the  controverted 
points  ;  but  he  was  not  destined  in  his  lifetime  to  see 
the  fruit  of  his  labours  in  this  respect.     It  was  not 
till  twelve  years  after  his  death  that  lona  adopted  the 
Roman  ways. 

K 


146  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

In  710,  as  we  learn  from  Bede,  Nailon  (or  Nectan), 
king  of  the  Picts,  conformed  to  the  Roman  Easter. 
Ceolfrid,  aheady  mentioned  as  having  effected  the 
change  in  Adamnan's  opinions,  had  sent  to  Naiton, 
in  response  to  inquiries,  a  wisel3'-written  exposition  of 
the  question,  and  to  him  may  be  attributed  the 
adoption  of  the  Roman  Easter  by  the  Pictish  nation. 
But  the  Columban  monasteries  in  Pictland  still 
adhered  to  their  old  ways,  even  after  the  Mother 
House  of  lona  had  abandoned  them;  and,  in  717, 
Naiton  took  on  him  to  exhibit  the  fervency  of  his 
orthodoxy  by  driving  west  across  the  mountains  of 
Drumalban  the  recalcitrant  Columban  monks.  The 
battle  was,  however,  now  practically  won ;  and  before 
many  years  the  Easter  of  the  old  Irish  cycle,  which 
had  been  abandoned  long  before  (634)  in  the  south  of 
Ireland,  was  heard  of  no  more.  There  can  be  no 
doubt  that  the  high  reputation  of  Adamnan  for 
learning  contributed  largely  to  bring  about  this 
result.  When  one  so  wise  and  so  good  had  changed 
his  belief  and  practices,  men  felt  there  must  be  some- 
thing in  the  contention  of  their  opponents.  Yet  the 
final  surrender  of  the  monks  of  lona  must  be 
attributed  to  the  wise  instructions  of  an  aged 
Northumbrian  priest  named  Egbert,  who  had  for 
many  years  lived  as  a  monk  in  Ireland,  and  had 
obtained  there  a  singular  repute  for  piety  and  ascetic 
severity.  He  was,  in  his  old  age,  very  desirous  to 
make  a  pilgrimage  to  Rome,  but  was  warned  by  the 
dream  of  a  brother-monk  that  his  duty  was  to  visit 
the  brethren  at  lona   ''  because  theh  ploughs  did  not 


TRANSFORMATION    OF    NAMES.  1 47 

go  Straight."  In  716  he  removed  to  lona,  where 
he  was  held  in  great  veneration.  He  spent  the  last 
thirteen  years  of  his  life  there,  and  died,  after  cele- 
brating mass,  on  Easter-day  in  the  year  729.  And 
after  that  date,  at  all  events,  if  not  a  few  years  earlier, 
the  old  Celtic  computation  of  Easter  was  abandoned 
for  ever.i 

Celtic  names  often  underwent  strange  transfor- 
mations; but  few  of  them  exhibit  more  numerous 
variations  of  shape  than  that  of  Adamnan.  The  word 
(which  in  signification  is  a  diminutive  of  Adam,  and 
sometimes  appears  as  Adaman)  passed,  through  the 
form  Ownan,  into  Eunan,  the  name  under  which  the 
cathedral  church  of  the  Irish  diocese  of  Raphoe  was 
dedicated.  While  in  Scotland  the  saint's  name  can 
be  traced,  according  to  Dr.  Reeves,  under  such 
disguises  as  Ainan,  Arnty,  Eonan,  Eunan,  Teunan, 
Thewnan,  Skeulan,  and,  most  odd  of  all,  Arnold. - 
In  the  Scottish  dedications  of  churches  and  the  names 
of  wells,  etc.,  we  have  indications  that  he  was  venerated 
not  only  in  Cantire  and  the  island  of  Sanda  (Incha- 
wyn)  off  its  coast,  but  in  Aberdeenshire  at  Aboyn, 
and  Furvie  (which  is  specially  connected  with  his  name 
in  the  Aberdeen  Breviary) ;  in  Banff  at  Forglen  ;  in 
Perthshire  at  Campsie;  in  Forfarshire  at  Tannadice;  in 
West  Lothian  at  Dalmeny  ;  and  in  the  island  of  Inch- 
keith  in  the  Forth,  which  we  are  now  familiar  with  for 


^  See  Bede,  Eccles.  Hist.,  lib,  v.,  c.  21, 

-  Reeves,  article  "Adamnan"  in  Smith  and  Wace'.s  Z>/V/.  of 
Christ.  Biog.y  and  Historians  of  Scotland,  vol,  vi.,  ]),  clxviii  ; 
Forbes,    Kalendars  of  Scottish  Saints,   p,   266. 


14^  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCO'J'LAND. 

its  lighthouse  and  its  fortifications,  lately  armed  with 
heavy  guns  for  the  protection  of  Edinburgh.  You 
will  observe  that  the  large  majority  of  these  dedica- 
tions were  in  the  dominion  of  the  Picts,  and  I  cannot 
help  offering  the  conjecture  that  the  concurrence  of 
Adamnan's  changed  views  with  those  adopted  by  the 
zealous  Pictish  monarch  may  have  stimulated  the 
special  veneration  felt  for  him  in  that  kingdom. 

The  most  important  of  the  writings  of  Adamnan  is 
undoubtedly  the  Life  of  St.  Columba,  which  has  been 
discussed  ;  but  something  should  be  said  here  of  his 
other  principal  work,  entitled  Cojicer?nng  the  Holy 
Places}  We  learn  from  Bede  (lib.  v.,  c.  15)  that  Arculf, 
a  bishop,  and  a  Gaul  by  nationality,  was  wrecked  on 
the  coast  of  Britain  on  his  return  voyage  from  a 
pilgrimage  to  Palestine  and  the  East.  It  is  not 
difficult  to  understand  how,  if  he  were  sailing  to  some 
port  on  the  western  or  northern  coast  of  France,  he 
might  by  tempests  have  been  blown  far  north,  and  on 
landing  have  come  within  reach  of  the  fame  of  Adam- 
nan,  After  many  unrecorded  adventures  he  reached 
lona,  and  from  his  lips  Adamnan  took  down  on 
waxen  tablets  Arculfs  account  of  the  most  interesting 
places  visited  by  him,  including,  besides  Jerusalem, 
Alexandria  and  Constantinople.  He  had  also  seen 
something  of  Crete  and  of  Sicily  on  his  return 
journey.  His  narrative,  as  we  see  from  the  work 
itself,  was  drawn  from  him  in  large  measure  by  the 
intelligent  questions  of  his  host.     It    was  afterwards 

^  This  work  is  printed  in  the  Acta  Ord.  Benedict,  sec.  iii., 
pars  ii. 


ARCULF  S    TOUR    IN    PALESTINE.  1 49 

transferred  by  Adamnan,  in  an  abbreviated  form,  from 
the  tablets  to  parchment.  It  forms,  in  truth,  a  really 
valuable  account  of  the  places  in  the  Holy  Land 
visited  by  the  pilgrims  of  that  day,  and  contains 
several  ground-plans  (sketched  by  Arculf)  of  the 
churches  built  upon  the  sacred  sites.  It  was  made  the 
foundation  of  Bede's  work  on  the  same  subject.  We 
may  note  in  passing  that  in  the  Galilean  part  of  his 
tour  Arculf  placed  himself  under  the  guidance  of  a 
hermit,  Peter  by  name,  a  Burgundian  by  birth,  who 
hurried  him  from  place  to  place  with  a  speed  which 
he  little  rehshed.  The  incident  has  a  life-like  air 
of  truthfulness. 

Unfortunately,  the  work  contains,  in  its  pertinent 
narration,  scarcely  any  information  that  would  throw 
even  a  side-light  upon  the  usages  of  the  Scottish 
Church.  One  point,  however,  I  have  noted  with 
much  interest.  Adamnan  observes  that  the  initial 
letter  of  Tabor  (the  mountain)  is  the  Greek  Theta 
[0],  indicating  that  it  should  be  pronounced  "  with  an 
aspiration,"  and  that  the  final  o  is  long,  being  Omega 
[w].  Now,  through  the  chink  of  this  fact  of  the 
interest  of  Adamnan  in  such  a  little  question,  we  may 
get  a  passing  glimpse  of  the  considerable  measure  of 
culture  which  existed  in  the  Scottish  monasteries. 
When  men  are  interested  in  questions  of  philology 
and  pronunciation,  it  indicates  that  they  have  pro- 
gressed a  considerable  way  in  intellectual  pursuits. 

The  conclusion  of  the  work  contains  a  story 
reported  by  Arculf  of  a  warrior  in  the  East,  who, 
going  out  to  the  wars,  "  commended  himself  and  his 


150  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

horse"  to  the  care  of  St.  Oeorge,  and  was  kept  in 
safety  in  many  fierce  battles.  It  was  not  unnatural 
for  Arculf  to  take  a  special  interest  in  St.  George, 
as  that  hero  had  been  long  venerated  in  France. 
But  we  may  conjecture  that  Adamnan's  book  may 
have  helped  largely  to  spread  his  fame  among  the 
warlike  people  of  Britain. 

Among  other  subjects  of  inquiry,  Adamnan  desired 
to  know  whether,  in  the  desert  of  St.  John  Baptist, 
/\rculf  had  seen  any  locusts  or  wild  honey.  Small 
locusts,  the  traveller  replied,  he  had  seen  ;  but  he 
gives  it  as  his  opinion  that  the  "wood-honey"  {inel 
silvestre)  was  the  sweet  leaves  of  certain  trees  which 
he  had  tasted. 

Adamnan  also  seems  taken  with  the  view  of  Arculf, 
that  our  Lord  in  the  phrase,  "  Ye  are  the  salt  of  the 
earth,''  meant  to  refer  to  salt  dug  out  of  the  earth 
as  distinguished  from  sea-salt.  The  traveller  had 
seen  and  tasted  some  rock-salt  in  Sicily,  and  declared 
it  to  be  the  saltest  of  salts  {sal  salsissinnan).  Now, 
foreign  as  both  these  interpretations  are  to  those 
familiar  only  with  our  English  Bibles,  and  baseless 
as  the  latter  seems  to  be,  the  view  that  the  honey, 
which  formed  part  of  the  food  of  the  Baptist,  was 
some  sweet  exudation  on  the  leaves  of  trees,  has 
been  maintained  by  very  many  scholars  of  modern 
times.^  My  object,  however,  in  noticing  these  things 
is  to  show  that  they  give  us  a  glimpse  of  the  real 
interest  taken   by  Adamnan   in   getting  at  what   he 

^  Meyer  (on   Matt.   iii.  4)  cites    Siiidas,    Salmasius,    Reland, 
Michaelis,  Kuinoel,  Fritzche,  Bleek,  and  Volkmar. 


CHARACTER    OF    ADAMNAN's    WORK, 


5T 


thought  the  true  sense  of  the  Scripture  narrative. 
It  is  easy  to  picture  the  eagerness  with  which,  in 
the  remote  httle  island  in  the  western  sea,  he 
questioned  the  traveller  from  the  distant  regions  of 
the  East. 

Again,  before  transcribing  his  guest's  narrative,  he 
made  himself  acquainted,  he  tells  us,  with  other 
accounts  of  the  Holy  Land,  which  fact  gives  us 
another  glimpse  of  the  learning  of  lona. 

The  treatise,  Coftcerning  the  Holy  Places,  is  written 
in  a  more  careful  and  studied  style  than  the  Life 
of  St.  Columba,^Yidi  is  seldom  disfigured  by  barbarisms 
and  obscurities  such  as  are  not  infrequent  in  the 
latter  work.  The  book  concludes  with  the  request, 
so  common  in  these  old  writings,  that  the  reader  would 
pray  for  Arculf,  who  supplied  the  facts,  and  for  the 
"wretched  sinner"  who  wrote  them  down. 

Everything  we  know  of  Adamnan  makes  us  dis- 
posed to  willingly  accept  the  judgment  of  Bede, 
that  he  was  "a  good  and  wise  man,  and  pre- 
eminently learned  in  the  Holy  Scriptures."  We 
have  only  to  add  that  the  error  which  made  Adam- 
nan,  under  the  name  Eunan,  bishop  of  Raphoe,  recurs 
in  the  Kalendar  of  the  Scottish  Prayer-Book  of  1637, 
where,  at  September  25th,  we  find  "Adaman  B." 

After  the  death  of  Adamnan,  the  learned  Skene 
{Celtic Scotla7id,  vol.  ii.,  p.  289)  infers,  from  a  compari- 
son of  lists  of  abbats  of  lona,  that  each  of  the  two  rival 
parties— the  Celtic  and  the  Roman — elected  their 
own  abbat,  and   that  this  schism  was  continued  for 


152  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

many  years.  The  different  lists  are  certainly  per- 
plexing, but  in  default  of  more  light,  I  cannot  but 
think  the  inference  is  weightier  than  the  evidence 
will  bear.  It  seems  to  me  quite  inconceivable  that 
so  grave  a  state  of  things  as  the  existence  of  a 
prolonged  schism  would  not  have  been  expressly 
referred  to. 

The  later  annals  of  lona  during  the  period  with 
which  we  are  concerned  are  for  the  most  part  only 
brief  jottings  ;  but  we  may  notice  a  few  events  of 
importance  and  interest.  Their  island  home,  exposed 
to  the  wild  sweep  of  the  Atlantic,  must  have  sub- 
jected the  brotherhood  of  lona  to  frequent  perils 
of  the  deep.  The  monastery  of  Apurcrossan  (now 
Applecross,  in  Ross-shire)  had,  in  737,  lost  its  abbat, 
with  twenty-two  others,  out  at  sea,  and  twelve  years 
after  (749)  the  monastic  family  of  lona  met  a  similar 
disaster.  The  language  of  the  Irish  annalist,  Tig- 
hernac,  would  suggest  that  it  was  attended  with  even 
greater  loss.  Under  the  year  749  he  notes,  "A  great 
storm.     The  family  of  lona  drowned."  ^ 

In  778,  Niall  Frassach,  who  had  been  king  of  all 
Ireland  for  seven  years,  and  had  retired  to  the 
monastery  of  lona,  died  there  apparently  after  eight 
vears'  residence  among  the  brethren.  Four  years 
afterwards,  another  Irish  monarch,  Artgaile,  king  of 
Connaught,  went  on  his  pilgrimage  to  lona,  and 
died  there  after  eight  years'  residence. 

^  Skene's  Chronicles  of  the  Picts  and  Scots,  p.  76.  Perhaps 
demersi  may  mean  "buried"  in  the  ruins  of  their  destroyed 
houses. 


RAVAGES    OF    THE    DANES.  T53 

During  the  course  of  the  eighth  century  the 
remains  of  St.  CoUimba  were  disinterred,  enshrined, 
and  removed  to  Ireland,  where  they  were  deposited 
in  the  church  of  Saul  Patrick,  in  the  county  of  Down. 
The  cause  of  this  translation  of  the  relics  is  generally, 
and  probably  rightly,  attributed  to  the  terror  which 
the  Danish  piratical  fleets  were  spreading  every- 
where along  the  coasts.  We  know  from  the  Saxo7i 
Chronicle,  that,  in  793,  the  sacred  island  of 
Lindisfarne  was  ravaged  by  the  heathen  Danes ; 
and  it  may  well  have  been  that  the  dread  of  a  similar 
calamity  prompted  the  removal,  to  a  place  of  greater 
safety,  of  the  most  precious  treasure  of  lona,  the 
body  of  the  holy  founder.  However  this  may  be, 
in  802  the  blow  fell,  and  the  monastery  of  lona 
was  pillaged  and  burned.  Four  years  later  a  second 
attack  was  made  upon  the  island,  and  sixty-eight 
of  the  brethren  fell  by  the  sword.  The  intense  love 
of  the  brotherhood  for  their  home  is  affectingly 
manifested  by  their  persistent  efforts  to  re-establish 
their  position  the  moment  the  immediate  danger 
was  removed.  In  818,  the  abbat  Diarmait  returned 
to  the  island  with  the  shrine  of  Columba.  And 
at  this  time,  as  Skene  {Celtic  Scotland,  vol.  ii., 
p.  298)  gives  good  reason  for  believing,  the  monastic 
buildings  were  constructed  of  stone,  in  a  situation 
better  suited  for  defence.  But  once  more  a  terrible 
and  murderous  onslaught  on  the  brotherhood  was 
made  by  the  Danish  hordes  in  825,  in  the  account 
of  which  the  monk  Elaithmac,  the  son  of  an  Irish 
prince,  appears  prominently,  as  having  been  slaugh- 


154  Tf^E    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

tered  before  the  altar  where  he  was  celebrating  mass. 
The  desire  to  secure  the  precious  metals  that  formed 
the   shrine   of  Columba,    which    they    believed   was 
hidden  in  the  island,   was  on  this  occasion,   as   we 
are  expressly  told,  one  of  the  objects  of  the  Danish 
attack.     Some   of  the    monks    saved  themselves   by 
flight.     After   having  seen  the   companions  who  re- 
mained  with   him  put   to    death    before    his    eyes, 
Blaithmac  was  asked  to  reveal  the  place  where  the 
holy   relics   were    deposited    in    concealment.      He 
replied  that  he  did  not  know,  and  that  if  he  knew 
he  would  not  tell,  whereupon  he  was  instantly  hewn 
in   pieces.      "  It   was   fitting   that   lona,   the    sacred 
nursery  of  so  many  doctors  and  confessors,  should 
also  have  its  martyrs  in  the  saints  of  God."^     Some 
of  the   particulars  just   related   are   derived   from   a 
Latin   Life  of  Blaithmac^    written   in   one    hundred 
and  seventy-two  hexameter  verses  by  his  contempo- 
rary, the  erudite  Walafrid  Strabo,  who,  as  a  monk  of 
St.  Gall,  and   afterwards  abbat  of  Reichenau,  lived 
in  a  region  where  contact  with  visitors  from    Irish 
monasteries  was  frequent. 

We  now  approach  an  event  of  singular  importance 
in  the  secular  as  well  as  the  religious  history  of  the 
country — the  union  of  the  Scottish  and  Pictish  king- 
doms under  the  rule  of  one  monarch,  Kenneth  Mac- 
Alpin,  who  transferred  the  primacy  from  lona  to 
Dunkeld.  Whether  lona  had  preserved  its  privileges 
in  the  kingdom  of  the  Picts  after  the  expulsion  of 
the  Columban  monks  is  doubtful.  "  Among  the 
'  Bishop  Healy's  Insula  Sain/onin  et  Doctonivi,  p.  347. 


PRIMACY    TRANSFERRED    TO    DUNKETT).         1 55 

Picts,"  says  Dr.  Grub  {Ecd.  Hist,  of  Scotland^ 
vol.  i.,  p.  142),  ''the  Cliurch  appears  to  have  been 
reduced  to  vassalage  by  the  temporal  power.  During 
the  contests  of  the  two  nations,  the  difficulty  must 
have  been  experienced,  which  is  always  felt  when 
an  inhabitant  of  one  state  exercises  ecclesiastical 
jurisdiction  over  the  inhabitants  of  another."  But 
now  this  difficulty  ceased,  and  Kenneth,  having  built 
a  new  church  at  Dunkeld,  removed  to  it  some  of 
the  relics  of  St.  Columba  (850);  and  henceforth 
the  primatial  authority  was  claimed  for  Dunkeld, 
though  the  claim  may  not  have  been  readily  or  at 
once  acknowledged  by  all  the  Columban  monks  in 
the  west  of  Scotland.  Tuathal,  the  abbat  of  Dunkeld, 
is  also  styled  "  first  bishop "  {^primus  episcopiis)  of 
Fortrenn — the  name  given  to  the  kingdom  of  the 
Southern  Picts. ^  As  abbat  of  Dunkeld,  a  church 
dedicated  to  St.  Columba,  and  possessing  some  of 
his  relics,  he  would  claim  obedience  from  the 
Columban  monasteries  of  Scotland,  and  as  bishop 
of  Fortrenn,  he  was  head  of  the  Pictish  Church.^ 
I  have  learned,  after  a  long  acquaintance  with  his 
admirable  work,  to  have  a  profound  respect  for  the 
judgment  of  Dr.  Grub,  who  weighs  his  evidence 
with  all  the  impartiality  of  a  trained  lawyer  on  the 
judicial  bench ;  but  on  the  question  of  the  sense 
of  the  phrase,  "primus  Episcopus  Fortren,"  in  the 
An?ials  of  Ulster  at  865,  I  am  inclined  to  believe 
Skene   is    right   in    saying    that    it   "means    first    in 

1  Annals  of  Ulster,  A.D.  865. 

-Skene,  Celtic  Scotland,  vol.  ii.,  p.  3o8, 


156  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

time  and  not  in  dignity"  {Celtic  Scotland^  vol.  ii., 
p.  308).  l^y  this  we  should  understand  that  he  was 
the  first  bishop  having  episcopal yV/m^/V/Z^w.  Bishops, 
as  we  shall  see  (chap,  xiv.),  were  numerous,  but  hitherto 
they  had,  by  an  unusual  arrangement,  been  subject, 
as  members  of  the  monastic  communities,  to  the 
authority  of  the  abbats. 


157 


CHAPTER  X. 

INFLUENCE  OF  lONA  IN  THE  SOUTH  :  ST.  CUTHBERT 
IN  LOTHIAN. 

It  is  not  my  intention  to  narrate  at  any  length  the 
wonderful  story  of  the  Irish  mission  in  England.  It 
has  been  often  told ;  and  close  as  its  connection  is 
with  the  monastic  foundation  of  Columba  at  lona,  it 
would  open  a  field  too  wide  for  brief  treatment, 
and,  in  part,  too  remote  from  the  religious  history 
of  Scotland.  Some  notice,  however,  must  be  taken 
of  the  events  connected  with  the  memorable  time 
when  the  streams  of  Celtic  and  Latin  Christianity  first 
met  in  the  north. 

It  must  be  learned  elsewhere  how  the  half- 
Christianized  tribes  of  Angles  in  the  north-east  of 
England  and  the  adjoining  south-east  of  Scotland  had 
been  overwhelmed  by  the  power  of  the  pagan  Penda, 
and  how  the  arms  of  Oswald  had  restored  (634)  the 
kingdom  to  the  hands  of  a  Christian.  Oswald,  on  the 
death  of  his  father,  P:thelfrid  (616),  had  fled  with  his 
brother  and  sought  refuge  either  in  Ireland  or,  as  seems 
for  many  reasons  very  much  more  probable,  among 
the  Irish  Christians  of  British  Dalriada.     During  his 


158  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

exile  he  had  been  baptized  (iVdamnan,  Vita  S. 
Columbis,  lib.  i.,  c.  i).  And,  if  we  may  rationalize,  it 
was  the  memory  of  the  wonders  he  had  heard  about 
their  saintly  patron  from  the  Columban  monks  in  lona 
which  suggested  to  him  on  his  return  to  England  the 
dream  which  he  dreamed  the  day  before  his  successful 
engagement  with  the  forces  of  Cadwalla.  Columba 
seemed  to  approach,  bright  with  angelic  glory  and  of 
a  stature  so  great  that  he  seemed  to  touch  the  clouds. 
Then  the  saint  in  the  dream  uttered  the  words,  "Be 
strong  and  of  a  good  courage ;  behold,  I  will  be  with 
thee ; "  and  added  the  command  that  he  should  not 
delay  to  attack  the  enemy,  for  victory  would  be  his. 
After  his  triumph  and  settlement  in  his  kingdom  of 
Bernicia,  Oswald  sent  a  message  to  lona,  beseeching 
the  brethren  to  send  him  a  bishop  as  a  missionary  to 
help  in  bringing  back  his  people  to  the  Christian 
faith.  His  petition  was  answered.  A  bishop  (to 
whom  the  late  writer,  Hector  Boece,  gives  the  name 
Gorman)  was  sent  from  lona.  But  this  man,  who  is 
described  by  Bede  {Eccles.  Hist.,  lib.  iii.,  c.  5)  as  of 
too  austere  a  temperament,  met  with  no  success,  and 
soon  returned  back  to  lona. 

With  the  aid  of  Bede  {Eccles.  Hist.,  lib.  iii.,  c.  5)  we 
can  picture  to  ourselves  the  scene  on  the  return  to  lona 
of  the  unsuccessful  missionary.  The  "  seniors  "  of  the 
island  monastery  are  summoned  together ;  and  Gorman 
declared  to  them  that  no  progress  could  be  made 
among  men  so  intractable,  so  stubborn  and  barbarous 
as  the  Angles.  Then  there  was  much  discussion 
among  the  assembled  brethren  as  to  what  was  to  be 


AlDAN    DESPATCHED    TO    NORTHUiMlJRl A.  I59 

done,  for  they  were  desirous  to  grant  the  blessing 
which  had  been  sought  for  the  people  who  still  sat  in 
darkness.  Then  a  monk  named  Aidan,  who  was 
present  in  the  council,  addressing  the  returned 
missionary,  who  must  have  been  giving  some  details  of 
his  mode  of  working,  said,  "  It  seems  to  me,  brother, 
that  you  were  more  harsh  with  your  unlearned 
hearers  than  was  reasonable,  and  did  not  first,  as  the 
Aposde  has  taught  us,  offer  them  tlie  milk  of  less 
solid  doctrine,  until,  gradually  nourished  with  the 
Word  of  God,  they  would  have  been  able  to  accept  a 
more  advanced  teaching  and  stricter  rule  of  life." 

AVhen  they  heard  these  words,  the  eyes  of  all  who 
sat  in  the  council  were  turned  upon  Aidan,  and  after  a 
careful  and  full  discussion  of  what  had  been  said,  they 
resolved  to  send  Aidan  himself  to  supply  the  place  of 
Gorman.  And  so,  when  they  had  ordained  him  bishop, 
they  despatched  him  (635)  to  Northumbria.  His 
wisdom  and  loving  moderation  fully  justified  their 
choice.  Under  Aidan  Ghristianity  made  rapid  progress 
in  the  dominionsof  Oswald,  which  extended  northward 
as  far  as  the  Forth. 

The  episcopal  see  of  Aidan  was  fixed  by  the 
king  in  the  island  of  Lindisfarne,  off  the  coast  of 
Northumberland.  Though  unlike  lona  in  being 
accessible  from  the  shore  at  low  water,  it  resembles 
the  Scottish  "  Holy  Island  "  ^  in  extent,  being  about 
two  miles  and  three-quarters  in  length,  and  in 
breadth  about  a  mile  and  a  half.     Like  lona,  too,  it 

^  See  Lindisfarne  or  Holy  Island,  by  the  Rev,  W,  W.  F. 
Keeling. 


l6o  THE    CELTIC    cHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

contains  no  vestige  of  the  original  Celtic  church 
and  monastery ;  and,  like  lona,  the  ecclesiastical  ruins 
now  to  be  seen  on  the  island  are  of  the  mediceval 
period.  This  sacred  spot  was  the  seat  of  sixteen 
bishops  in  succession,  and  a  centre  of  missionary 
labour  scarcely,  if  at  all,  inferior  to  the  mother  house 
itself.  That  it  was  within  easy  reach  of  the  fortress 
of  Bamborough,  a  principal  residence  of  the  king, 
must  have  been  serviceable  in  maintaining  and 
increasing  the  influence  of  its  spiritual  chiefs. 

It  was  under  the  rule  of  Aidan  that  the  most 
famous  monastery  in  the  south  of  Scotland,  Melrose, 
had  its  origin  at  a  spot  some  two  miles  lower  down 
the  Tweed  than  the  site  of  the  ruins  of  the 
noble  Cistercian  abbey  which  now  attract  the 
attention  of  the  visitor.  The  place  occupied  by  the 
original  monastery  is  still  known  as  Old  Melrose,  and 
is  situated  on  the  right  bank,  where  the  river's  course 
makes  a  horse-shoe  curve  nearly  surrounding  the 
enclosure  of  the  monastery. ^  Of  this  monastery  the 
first  abbat  was  Eata.  He  had  been  one  of  twelve 
native  Northumbrian  boys  whom  St.  Aidan  had  taken 
"to  be  instructed  in  Christ."-  He  afterwards  appeared 
as  the  first  bishop  of  Hexham,  and  the  fifth  of  Lindis- 
farne.  It  was  during  Eata's  rule  as  abbat  of  Melrose 
— the  "Mailros"  of  Bede — that,  in  651,  the  young 
shepherd  Cuthbert,  who  tended  his  flocks  upon  the 


'  liede  {Eic/ci  IJisL,  lib.  v.,  c.  12)  says  the  monastery  was 
almost  surrounded  by  the  winding  of  the  river  Tweed. 

'  Another  of  these  twelve  boys  was  the  fariious  St.  Chad 
(Ceadda),  bishop  of  Lichrield. 


CUTIir.F.RT    SENT    TO    LINDISFARNE.  t6t 

banks  of  the  Leader  Water  (a  tributary  of  the  Tweed, 
which  flows  from  the  southern  slope  of  the  Lammermuir 
Hills  and  enters  the  larger  river  near  Melrose), 
presented  himself  for  admission  at  the  monastery. 
And  it  was  from  Melrose,  after  a  few  years,  that  he 
accompanied  his  abbat  to  found  the  monastery  at 
Ripon.  Differences  with  their  princely  patron  at 
Ripon  on  the  subject  of  the  Easter  computation 
drove  back  (66 1)  these  followers  of  the  Celtic  prac- 
tice to  Melrose.  In  664  Eata  removed  Cuthbert  to 
Lindisfarne,  where  he  was  appointed  prior  or  provost.^ 
Here  his  connection  with  Scotland  ceases ;  and  it  is 
not  my  province  to  relate  the  story  of  his  great  work 
and  wonderful  life  in  England.  It  is  of  interest,  how- 
ever, to  gather  together  all  that  we  can  learn  of  him 
during  his  stay  in  the  country  that  forms  our  present 
Scotland. 

Our  great  authority  is  Bede,  who  deals  with  the 
life  of  Cuthbert,  not  only  in  his  best-known  work,  the 
Ecclesiastical  History^  but  also  in  a  separate  biography 
of  the  saint  written  in  lucid  and  beautiful  prose,  as 
well  as  in  a  metrical  biography  of  less  value,  though 
not  without  its  merits.  Bede  had,  however,  made  use 
of,  and,  in  part,  incorporated  in  his  own  work,  an 
earlier  and  much  shorter  Life  by  an  unnamed 
monk  of  Lindisfarne,  which  should  certainly  be 
studied  together  with  Bede's  work,  as  occasionally 
we  find  in  it  some  graphic  touch  or  some  little  piece 

^  The  word  "propositus"  is  the  word  habitually  used  in 
the  documents  of  Celtic  monasticism  for  the  officer  who,  under  the 
abhat,  administered  the  aftairs  of  each  religious  house. 

L 


1 62  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

of  information  which  Bede  expunged  or  glossed,  to 
our  loss.^ 

Not  a  word  is  said  by  Bede  or  the  anonymous 
author  about  the  birth  or  parentage  of  Cuthbert. 
Perhaps  the  reason  is  that  nothing  was  known  aliout 
it ;  and  I  can  only  express  my  wonder  that  Skene  is 
to  be  found  {Celtic  Scotland,  vol.  ii.,  p.  205)  in  any 
measure  coquetting  with  the  Irish  story  which  makes 
him  born,  out  of  wedlock,  of  a  mother  who  was  an  Irish 
king's  daughter.  The  whole  narrative,  crammed  full  of 
absurdities,  has  for  its  source  a  fourteenth-century 
manuscript  now  preserved  in  the  Diocesan  Library  at 
York.2 

I  do  not  know  that  we  can  even  claim,  with  any 
confidence,  the  great  saint  as  a  native  of  North 
Britain,  though  it  appears  that  his  early  years  were 
passed  at  no  very  great  distance  from  I^Ielrose  ;  as  we 
are  told  by  Bede,  in  recounting  a  miracle  where  the 
saint  saved  a  house  from  fire  l)y  his  prayers,  that  he 
frequently  visited  (apparently  from  Melrose)  a 
good  woman  who  brought  him  up  as  a  child,  and 
whom  he  therefore  used  to  style  "mother." 

The  first  thing  we  learn  about   Cuthbert  is   that 

^  This  Life^  "by  a  contemporary  monk  of  Lindisfarne,"  is 
printed  by  the  Bollandists  {Acta  Sanctorum,  Martii  tom.  iii.,  p. 
117),  and  iDy  Stevenson,  Bed.c  0pp.  Minora,  p.  259. 

-  Skene  suspects  that  this  early  part  of  Bede's  narrative. 
deaUng  with  the  parentage  of  tlie  saint,  was  "expunged  at  tlie 
instance  of  the  critics  to  whom  lie  had  submitted  his  manu- 
script." This  part  of  the  story  of  the  Irish  manuscrijit  has,  it 
seems  to  me,  a  strong  resemblance  to  the  legend  about  the  birlh 
of  St.  Kentigern,  and  may  have  been  suggested  by  it  to  the  Tri^h 
hagiologist. 


CUTHr.ERTS    YOUTH.  I  63 

he  was  fond  of,  and  foremost  in,  all  manner  of  noisy 
boyish  games,  and  delighted  in  the  companionship  of 
his  fellows.  He  was  active  and  quick-witted  ;  and 
in  leaping,  running,  and  wrestling  was  proud  to  be 
able  to  beat,  not  only  all  boys  of  his  age,  but  even 
some  ofhis  seniors. 

The  anonymous  author,  with  a  greater  frankness 
of  detail  than  Bede,  describes  how  one  day,  when 
Cuthbert  was  eight  years  of  age,  the  boys  indulged 
themselves  (some  of  them  stark  naked)  in  the  sport  of 
standing  on  their  heads  with  their  legs  wide  apart  in 
the  air.  This  a  child  of  three  years  old,  who  was 
possessed  of  the  gift  of  prophecy,  considered  an 
unbecoming  attitude  for  a  future  bishop,  and  rebuked 
the  saint  accordingly,  who  did  not  take  well  the 
comments  of  his  three-year-old  mentor.  It  is 
amusing  to  find  Bede  refining  on  this  story  in  his  prose 
life,  while  in  his  verses,  as  was  natural,  the  humorous 
or  unbecoming  element  is  entirely  suppressed.  Still 
further,  in  the  First  Lesson  for  St.  Cuthbert's  Day  in 
the  Aberdeeii  Breviary^  we  read  the  very  tame 
account — "  Cuthbert  was  a  youth  of  good  disposition, 
and  one  day,  when  he  was  playing  with  boys,  a 
certain  boy  of  about  three  years  old  came  to  him  and 
said,  with  tears,  "  O  most  holy  Bishop  Cuthbert,  it 
does  not  become  thee,  whom  the  Lord  has  destined 
to  be  the  ruler  of  those  older  than  yourself,  to  play 
among  boys."  This  is  a  specimen  of  the  process 
of  rehandhng,  as  to  which  the  student  must  be  always 
on  the  alert.  To  most  of  us,  I  suppose,  the  child's 
prophecy  is  of  much  less  interest  than  the  picture 


t64  the    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

presented  of  the  merry,  light-hearted,  vigorous,  and 
athletic  boy,  in  whom  the  prophecy  was  fulfilled.  He 
who  afterwards  underwent  so  many  hardships  and 
toils  had  then  his  early  physical  training. 

The  next  incident  in  the  anonymous  Life  is 
how  a  swelling  in  Cuthbert's  knee  (which  might 
very  easily  occur  in  the  life  of  this  frolicsome  boy) 
was  cured  by  an  application  of  a  mixture  of  flour 
and  milk,  cooked  together  and  ////  on  Jwt^  a 
recipe  recommended  to  him  as  he  lay  m  the  sun 
outside  the  house  by  a  man  in  white  robes  who 
came  riding  by  on  a  splendidly-caparisoned  horse. 
''  After  a  few  days,"  says  the  biographer,  "  he  was 
perfectly  cured,"  and  Cuthbert  perceived  that  his 
adviser  on  horseback  was  an  angel. ^  This  story  is 
reproduced  faithfully  enough  by  Bede  in  his  more 
elegant  style,  except  that  he  adds  the  very  important 
statement  that  Cuthbert  tells  his  angelic  visitor  that 
"  the  skill  of  none  of  the  doctors  "  had  been  able  to 
do  him  good.  Perhaps  the  doctors  had  never  tried  a 
poultice  of  hot  milk  and  flour. "- 

Perhaps  it  was  in   his  early  youth  that  Cuthbert 


1  Canon  Browne  {Venerable  Bede  in  the  Fathers  fo7-  English 
A'm^/d'nf)  observes  :  "Curiously  enough,  Bcde's  only  doubt  in 
the  matter  is  whether  all  readers  will  believe  that  an  angel  rode 
on  horseback.  To  satisfy  the  scruples  of  such,  he  refers  them  to 
the  passage  in  the  Maccabees,  where  angels  came  on  horseback 
to  the  aid  of  Judas  Maccabeus." 

-  vShould  any  one  care  for  the  recipe  in  Latin  hexameters, 
here  it  is — 

Sic  fatus,  "  Similae  nitidam  cum  lacte  farinam 
Olla  coquat  pariter  ferventis  in  igne  culinae, 
Ilacque  istum  calida  sanandus  inunge  tumorem." 


CUTHDERT    AS   A    SOLDIER.  165 

served  as  a  soldier — a  fact  testified  to  by  the  anony- 
mous biographer,  but,  strangely  enough,  not  recorded 
by  Bede.  The  notice  is  very  brief ;  the  admiration  of 
the  anonymous  monk  is  roused  by  the  statement  that 
Cuthbert,  living  in  camp,  with  the  enemy  in  front, 
and  subsisting  on  scanty  rations,  still  throve  and 
flourished,  like  Daniel  and  the  Three  Holy  Children 
on  their  poor  fare.  The  place  which  this  story 
occupies  in  the  secular  life  of  Cuthbert,  and,  indeed, 
its  very  terms,  preclude  the  notion  that  the  anonymous 
biographer  understood  the  story  in  any  other  than 
a  literal  sense.^ 

From  the  time  when  his  knee  was  cured,  we  are 
told  the  youth  devoted  himself  much  to  prayer,  seek- 
ing more  particularly  for  angelic  aid.  His  prayers 
were  on  one  occasion  eftectively  made  on  behalf  of 
some  ships  in  danger  at  the  mouth  of  the  river  Tine 
{Tiniisy  Now,  what  river  was  this?  Was  it  the 
great  river  Tyne  that  divides  Northumberland  from 
Durham,  or  the  little  river  of  the  same  name  in  East 
Lothian  that  enters  the  sea  a  few  miles  north  of  the 
town  of  Dunbar?  It  seems  to  me  that  there  is  little 
or  no  evidence  to  determine  which  is  meant.  The 
Bollandists  give  judgment  in  favour  of  the  Scottish 
stream  ;  and  Scotchmen  will  probably  prefer  to  regard 
it  as  a  Scottish  miracle.  But  it  is  certain,  if  we  credit 
the  anonymous  Life,  that  Cuthbert,  during  his  secular 
life,  had  made  journeys  south  of  Durham. 

There  is  a  more  general  agreement  that  the  river 
Leader  (Leder)  of  the  anonymous  Life,  by  which  he 
1  See  Stevenson's  0/>p.  Hist.  Min.   Vcn.  BciLr,  p.  124. 


1 66  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

was  tending  the  herds  of  some  richer  man,  when  he 
saw  by  night  the  vision  of  St.  Aidan's  soul  being 
carried  to  heaven  "  in  a  ball  of  fire  "  by  the  angels,  is 
the  stream  already  referred  to  as  a  tributary  of  the 
Tweed. 1  It  was  tliis  wonderful  sight  wliich,  according 
to  Bede,  determined  Cuthbert  to  abandon  the  secular 
life,  and  devote  himself  to  the  monastery. 

We  are  told  that  Cuthbert  was  specially  drawn  to 
choose  Melrose  for  his  place  of  profession  by  the  high 
repute  of  the  provost  of  the  house,  Boisil  by  name, 
"a  monk  and  priest  of  exalted  virtues."  This,  I 
think,  tends  to  confirm  the  belief  that  the  place  of  his 
labour  as  a  herd  was  not  very  remote  from  IMelrose. 
Cuthbert  rode  to  the  monastery  spear  in  hand,'-  as 
was  not  unnatural  for  a  traveller  in  those  wild  times. 
Boisil,  who  was  standing  outside  the  door  of  the 
monastery  as  he  approached,  received  him  kindly ; 
and  Eata,  the  abbat,  who  had  been  absent,  arriving 
after  a  few  days,  on  the  provost's  recommendation 
admitted  Cuthbert  to  the  "family,"  or  brotherhood 
of  monks. 

Cuthbert  threw  himself  eagerly  into  the  duties  of  the 
monastic  life  at  IMelrose.  "  In  reading  and  praying, 
working  and  watching,"  he  seemed  to  surpass  his 
fellows.  It  is  especially  noted  of  him  that  he  strictly 
abstained  from  every  intoxicating  drink,  but  was  not 
at  this  time  rigid  in  the  matter  of  food,  ''lest  he  might 

'   Lauderdale  lakes  its  name  from  tliis  river. 

-  Indeed,  the  protection  of  the  lierds  from  plunder  was  pro- 
bably one  of  his  chief  duties,  as  he  watched  by  night.  The  stout 
young  soldier  would  have  been  well  suited  for  it. 


FOUNDATION    OF    RIPON    MONASTERY.  167 

be  less  fitted  for  work."  His  strength  and  vigour  of 
body,  fit  for  any  kind  of  labour,  is  expressly 
mentioned. 

After  some  years,  Cuthbert  was  taken  with  him  by 
his  abbat  to  found  the  monastery  at  Ripon,  and  there 
he  was  elected  by  the  "  family  "  to  be  "  provost  of  the 
guest-chamber,"  which  was  esteemed  an  honourable 
office  and  one  requiring  much  discretion. 

There  is  a  story  told  of  St.  Cuthbert  while  at 
Ivipon,  which,  though  concerned  with  his  life  on  the 
other  side  of  the  border,  is  worth  relating,  not  for  the 
miraculous  element,  but  because  it  illustrates  the 
duties  of  the  post  which  he  occupied  at  that  place, 
and  which  was  one  of  importance  in  the  monasteries 
of  Celtic  foundation.  I  choose  the  earlier  anonymous 
Life,  rather  than  Bede's,  as  my  chief  source  of  infor- 
mation. Very  early  one  morning  in  winter  a  traveller 
presented  himself  at  the  guest-house.  He  was  kindly 
received  by  Cuthbert,  as  was  his  manner.  Water  was 
supplied  for  washing  the  hands  and  feet  of  the 
stranger,  and  Cuthbert,  having  dried  his  feet  with 
towels,  rubbed  and  warmed  them,  for  they  were  cold, 
with  his  own  hands.  The  stranger  was  anxious  to 
resume  his  journey  at  once,  but  was  prevailed  upon 
by  Cuthbert's  entreaties  to  wait  till  nine  o'clock  (the 
third  hour),  when  food  would  be  served.  When  the 
bell  for  the  third  hour  had  sounded,  and  the  prayers 
of  Terce  were  finished,  Cuthbert  made  ready  the 
table,  and  placed  on  it  some  food  which  he  had  by 
him.  By  some  chance  there  happened  to  be  no 
bread  in  the  guest-house,  but  only  a  few  crumbs  which 


l68  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IX    SCOTLAND. 

he  gathered  together  and  put  on  the  table  "  for  blessed 
bread."  ^  Cuthbert  then  left  the  guest-house,  and 
proceeded  to  the  monastery  to  get  some  more  bread, 
but  none  was  yet  to  be  had,  for  the  loaves  were  not 
yet  taken  out  of  the  oven.  When  he  returned  to  the 
guest-house  the  traveller  was  gone,  and  not  a  trace  of 
him  could  be  found,  though  Cuthbert  at  once  looked 
for  his  footprints  in  the  fresh  snow  with  which  the 
ground  was  covered.  His  senses,  however,  as  he 
entered  the  guest-chamber  were  greeted  with  the 
smell  of  bread  of  the  sweetest  kind,  which  he  soon 
perceived  came  from  three  hot  loaves.  But  how  did 
they  come  there  ?  It  was  plain  that  his  guest  was  an 
angel. 

As  already  mentioned,  Eata  and  Cuthbert,  with  the 
other  brethren,  had  soon  to  leave  Ripon.  They  were 
given  their  choice  to  adopt  the  Roman  Easter  or  to 
depart.     They  chose  to  return  to  Melrose. 

After  his  return,  the  pestilence,  which  was  then 
widespread  through  Britain,  attacked  the  monastery. 
Among  the  sufferers  were  the  prior,  Boisil,  and 
Cuthbert.  The  former  died,  having  been  attended 
sedulously  by  Cuthbert,  who  read  aloud  to  him,  at  his 
request,  during  the  week  before  his  death,  the  Gospel 
according  to  St.  John.     The  village  of  St.  Boswells,  a 

'  There  is  a  passage  in  Adanman  {I'i/a  S.  Co/.,  lib.  ii.,  c.  12) 
\\  liich  illustrates  this.  1  take  it  that  the  piaetiee  of  the  Colum- 
Ijan  monks  was  to  break  their  fast,  whether  at  the  third,  or,  on 
fast-days,  at  the  ninth  hour,  by  fust  partaking  of  some  "blessed 
bread."  In  Adamnan  it  is  called  eiilogia.  Whether  this  bread 
was  part  of  the  bread  offered  at  the  altar,  but  unconsecrated,  or 
had  received  some  other  kind  of  special  benediction,  is  not 
certain. 


CUTHBERT's- LABOURS    AT    MELROSE.  169 

few  miles  from  IMelrose,  now  best  known  for  its  great 
sheep-fair,  the  largest  in  the  south  of  Scotland,  still 
perpetuates  the  name  of  the  good  provost. 

Cuthbert  during  his  own  illness  was  told  how  the 
brethren  had  been  praying  all  night  for  him.  At  once 
he  exclaimed,  "Why  do  I  lie  here?  We  cannot 
think  that  God  will  despise  the  prayers  of  so  many 
good  men.  Give  me  my  staff  and  my  sandals."  And 
he  thereupon  rose,  and  attempted  to  walk  with  the 
help  of  his  staff.  He  gradually  recovered  his  strength 
and  health,  though  almost  throughout  his  whole  life 
he  felt  in  some  degree  the  injurious  effects  of  that 
formidable  illness. 

On  the  death  of  Boisil,  Cuthbert  was  made  provost 
of  the  monastery  of  Melrose,  and  he  followed  the 
good  example  of  his  predecessor,  not  only  in  the 
performance  of  the  duties  within  the  monastic  house, 
but  also  in  his  labours  for  the  welfare  of  the  country 
folk  all  around,  whom  Bede  speaks  of  as  Angles  by 
race.  For  many  of  them  had  led  bad  lives,  or  were 
given  over  to  gross  superstitions,  and  some,  even  in 
the  time  of  the  pestilence,  neglected  "  the  sacrament 
of  their  faith,"  and  resorted  for  protection  to  spells 
and  incantations  and  other  idolatrous  remedies. 
Cuthbert  went  frequently  among  them  through  the 
surrounding  villages,  sometimes  on  horseback,  but 
oftener  on  foot.  And  he  took  more  particular  care 
to  preach  in  the  hamlets  among  the  wild  hills,  where 
other  teachers  were  little  inclined  to  go.  Sometimes 
he  would  spend  a  week  in  this  work,  or  even  two  or 
three  weeks ;  sometimes  it  was  a  whole  month  before 


170  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

he  would  return  home.  The  results  that  folluwed 
were  very  marked.  Cuthbert  was  a  skilful  instructor, 
and  possessed  a  winning  and  persuasive  manner,  and 
''  the  light  of  his  angelic  countenance  "  was  such  that 
none  that  were  present  dared  to  hide  from  him  the 
secrets  of  their  hearts,  but  openly  confessed  their 
deeds,  because  they  believed  that  it  was  impossible 
to  hide  them  from  him.  Nor  did  they  fail,  as  Bede 
assures  us,  to  follow  his  directions  for  their  amend- 
ment. 

Such  is  the  account  that  has  come  down  to  us  of 
the  labours  of  St.  Cuthbert  at  Melrose. 

We  find  that  on  one  occasion  Cuthbert,  accom- 
panied by  two  of  the  brethren,  paid  a  visit  to  the 
country  of  the  Niduarian  Picts— that  is,  the  Picts  of 
Galloway.  But  this  was  not  for  missionary  purposes, 
but  on  some  business  connected  with  the  monastery, 
the  nature  of  which  is  not  told  us.  They  travelled 
partly  by  sea,  taking  boat,  we  may  suppose,  at  some 
place  well  up  in  the  Solway.^ 

On  another  occasion  he  went  from  Melrose  to  the 
monastery  at  Coldingham  (on  the  sea  cliffs  of 
Berwickshire),  on  the  invitation  of  the  royal  abbess, 
St.  Aebba.  This  Aebba  was  a  daughter  of  Ethelfrid, 
king  of  Northumbria,  and  sister  of  St.  Oswald. 
Coldingham  {Coliidi  Urbs  of  Bede),  as  founded  by 
Aebba,  was  a  double  monastery — that  is,  of  both  monks 

^  I  have  placed  in  the  text  the  comaionly  accepted  view  of  the 
words  "  to  the  land  of  the  Picts,  who  are  called  Niduari " 
(Bede's  Vita  S.  Citthh.^  c.  iv.)  ;  but  it  is  by  no  means  certain 
that  these  were  not  Picts  north  of  the  Forth. 


VISIT    TO    COLDINGHAINI.  171 

and  nuns,  who,  though  residing  apart,  were  subject  to 
one  head.  The  great  house  of  St.  Brigid  at  Kildare 
had  long  before  set  an  example  of  such  twin  commu- 
nities. Similar  was  the  House  of  St.  Hilda  at  Whitby; 
and  other  examples  of  this  practice  are  shown  us 
by  history  at  Repton,  Barking,  and  Wimborne ;  and 
in  France  at  Brie,  Autun,  and  Fontrevault. 

The  monastery  of  St.  Aebba  was  placed  on  the  wild 
headland  not  far  from  the  site  of  the  lighthouse  that 
now  marks  the  promontory  of  St.  Abb's  Head,  which 
takes  its  name  from  her.^ 

Connected  with  Cuthbert's  visit  to  Coldingham  is 
a  story  that  shows  us  the  saint  practising  a  form  of 
ascetic  discipline  that  was  a  favourite  in  the  monastic 
life  of  the  time,  and  for  that  reason  it  is  worth  recording. 
St.  Aebba  had  asked  St.  Cuthbert  to  come  and  preach 
to  the  inmates  of  her  House.  He  felt  that  he  could 
not  refuse,  and  so  he  went,  and  for  some  days  he 
remained  there  preaching  the  way  of  righteousness. 
And  according  to  his  manner,  says  Bede,  at  night, 
when  the  rest  were  sleeping,  he  went  forth  alone  to 
pray,  and  so  continued  during  the  long  watches  of  the 
night  till  the  hour  of  service  in  the  church  called  him 
back.  One  night  a  prying  brother  of  the  monastery 
privately  followed  him.  The  saint  was  seen  descend- 
ing the  cliffs  to  the  sea-shore,  and  then  entering  the 
water  till  the  swell  of  the  waves  reached  his  shoulders 

^  As  in  so  many  instances,  the  mediaeval  Denedictine  Priory 
of^.  Coldingham  (founded  in  1098  by  King  Edgar)  is  situated  at 
a  'considerable  distance,  inland,  from  the  site  of  the  earlier 
foundation.  The  ruins  of  the  Priory  Church  still  give  some 
notion  of  its  former  dignity. 


172  THE   CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

and  neck.  And  there  he  stood  during  the  dark  hours 
of  the  night  raingUng  his  praises  with  the  noise  of  the 
sea  {undisonis  in  laudibus).  AVhen  dawn  approached 
he  came  to  land  and  began  to  pray  afresh,  as  he  knelt 
on  the  shore. 

This  is  a  very  interesting  picture,  yet  it  is  likely 
that  it  might  never  have  been  preserved  for  us,  but 
for  the  marvel  that  followed.  While  he  was  praying, 
two  small  creatures  coming  from  the  sea — Bede 
says  they  were  "otters  " — approached  him,  and  sought 
to  dry  him  with  their  furry  coats,  and  to  warm  his  feet 
with  their  breath.  This  service  done,  they  received 
his  blessing  and  glided  back  into  their  native  waves.^ 
Cuthbert  then  returned  to  the  monastery  and  joined 
with  the  brethren  in  singing  the  morning  psalms. 

If  Stevenson  {BedcB  0pp.  Hist.  Min.,  p.  268)  is 
correct  in  his  conjecture  that  the  name  of  the  river 
'•'  Tesgeta  "  is  an  error  of  the  scribe  of  the  anonymous 
Life,  and  should  be  read  "Tevyota"— the  Teviot— 
we  have  another  incident  of  Cuthbert's  life  that  is  to 
be  placed  on  the  north  of  our  modern  border.-'     He 

^  Bede's  expansion  and  adornment  of  the  story  in  the 
anonymous  Life  is  worth  a  study.  The  anonymous  Life 
describes  the  two  creatures  as  pusilla  animalia  maritima  : 
in  Bede  they  are  quadnipcdia  qmc  vulgo  Liitric  vocantur.  If 
there  is  any  foundation  at  all  for  this  part  of  the  story,  could 
the  creatures  have  been  young  seals,  seen  dimly  from  a  distance 
and  in  the  gloom — the  imagination  of  the  prying  brother 
contributing  something  ? 

^  Indeed,  we  need  not  assume  any  transcriptional  error  so  far 
as  the  letter  "g"  is  concerned,  as  many  instances  may  be  found 
of  the  change  of  ^  into  y.  Thus  "Mayo,"  see  p.  179,  is  in 
Bede  *'Mageo."  "Ely"  was  "Elge."  Our  affirmative  "yea" 
appears  in  Bcdc  as  "gic."    Sec  Mayor  and  Lumby's  Dcdc,  p.  308. 


INCIDENT    IN    CUTHDERT  S    LIFE,  173 

had  gone  one  day  towards  the  south,  teaching  and 
baptizing  among  the  country  people,  and  was  accom- 
panied in  his  journey  by  a  boy  as  his  attendant. 
They  had  brought  no  provisions  with  them,  and  as 
the  day  went  on  Cuthbert  asked  his  companion,  "Are 
you  thinking  who  has  prepared  your  dinner  for  you 
to-day?"  The  l)oy  confessed  that  he  had  not  much 
hope  of  dinner  that  day.  The  saint  repHed,  "Be 
assured,  my  son,  that  the  Lord  will  provide  food  for 
those  who  trust  in  Him,  for  He  has  said,  '  Seek  ye 
first  the  kingdom  of  God  and  His  righteousness,  and 
all  these  things  shall  be  added  unto  you ' ;  and  again 
in  the  Prophet,  '  I  have  been  young  and  now  am  old, 
yet  saw  I  never  the  righteous  forsaken  nor  his  seed 
begging  their  bread.'  '  For  the  workman  is  worthy  of 
his  hire.' "  Presently  an  eagle  comes  in  view  on  the 
bank  of  the  river  with  a  large  fish  which  it  had  caught. 
The  boy  ran  forward,  and  brought  the  fish  to  the 
saint,  who  at  once  rebuked  him  with  the  words, 
"  Why  did  you  not  give  part  to  our  hungry  fisher- 
man?"^ Then  tlie  boy  took  part  of  the  fish  back 
to  the  eagle,  and  the  remaining  part  they  carried 
with  them,  and  when  they  got  into  inhabited  places 
they  cooked  it,  and  ate,  and  gave  to  others,  and 
being  satisfied  they  gave  glory  to  God,  and  went 
on  their  way.  Kindness  towards  birds  and  beasts — 
nay,  more  than  kindness,  a  real  sympathy  with 
them — is  constantly  exemplified  in  the  lives  of  the 
ancient  saints  of  Britain  and  Ireland.  A  truly  bene- 
ficent influence  such  stories  must  have  tended  to 
1  Bede  spoils  this  in  the  telling. 


174  THE    CELTIC   CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

exert  in  those  rude  times  when  there  was  so  little  in 
the  lives  of  the  generality  of  men  to  foster  the 
kindlier  and  more  humane  feelings  towards  the  dumb 
creatures  of  God. 

After  some  (Bede  says  "  many  ")  years  at  Melrose, 
the  abbat  Eata  transferred  Cuthbert  to  I.indisfarne, 
where  he  was  appointed  provost,  and  the  story  of 
Cuthbert  in  Scotland  closes. 

The  true  appreciation  of  the  character  of  St.  Cuth- 
bert must,  of  course,  be  based  on  the  review  of  his 
whole  life,  which  has  not  been  here  attempted. 
I  shall  best  consult  the  interests  of  the  reader  by 
merely  citing  the  estimate  of  that  character  by  one 
who  had  made  himself  intimately  acquainted  with 
the  time  and  with  the  man.^  "What  was  it,"  asks 
Bishop  I.ightfoot,  "  that  won  for  Cuthbert  the  ascend- 
ancy and  fame  which  no  Churchman  north  of  the 
Humber  has  surpassed,  or  even  rivalled?  He  was 
not  a  great  writer  like  Bede.  He  was  not  a  first 
preacher  like  Aidan.  He  founded  no  famous  institu- 
tion ;  he  erected  no  magnificent  building.  He  was 
not  martyred  for  his  faith  or  for  his  Church.  His 
episcopate  was  exceptionally  short  [two  years],  and 
undistinguished  by  any  event  of  signal  importance. 
Whence,  then,  this  transcendent  position  which  he 
long  occupied,  and  still  to  a  certain  measure  main- 
tains ?  He  owed  something,  doubtless,  to  what  men 
call  accident.  He  was  on  the  winning  side  in  the 
controversy  between  the  Roman  and  English  obser- 

i  Dr.  Bright's  admirable  sketch  {Chapters  of  Early  English 
Church  History)  is  too  long  for  quotation. 


vances  of  Easter.^  Moreover,  the  strange  vicissitudes 
which  attended  his  dead  body  served  to  emphasize 
the  man  in  a  remarkable  way.  But  these  are  only 
the  buttresses  of  a  great  reputation.  The  foundation 
of  the  reverence  entertained  for  Cuthbert  must  be 
sought  elsewhere.  Shall  we  not  say  that  tlie  secret 
of  his  influence  was  this  ?  The  '  I '  and  '  not  I ' 
of  St.  Paul's  great  antithesis  were  strongly  marked 
in  him.  There  was  an  earnest,  deeply  sympathetic 
nature  in  the  man  himself,  and  this  strong  personality 
was  purified,  was  heightened,  was  sanctified  by  the 
communion  with,  the  indwelling  of,  Christ.  His 
deeply  sympathetic  spirit  breathes  through  all  the 
notices  of  him.  It  was  this  which  attracted  men 
to  him ;  it  was  this  which  unlocked  men's  hearts 
to  him.  We  are  told  that  he  had  a  wonderful  power 
of  adapting  his  instructions  to  the  special  needs 
of  the  persons  addressed.  '  He  always  knew  what 
to  say,  to  whom,  when,  and  how  to  say  it.'  This 
faculty  of  reading  men's  hearts  sympathy  alone  can 
give.  And  Cuthbert's  overflowed,  even  to  dumb 
animals.  The  sea-fowl,  which  bear  his  name  [the 
eider-duck,  called  *St.  Cuthbert's  duck,'  which  breed 
on  the  Fame  Islands], ^  were  his  special  favourites. 
.  .  .  .  Other  tales,  too,  are  told — perhaps  not  alto- 
gether legendary — which  testify  to  his  sympathy  witli 
and  power  over  the  lower  creation.     We  are  reminded 

^  Cuthbert  had  been  content  to  accept  the  Roman  observance, 
though  at  first  he  had  followed  the  Celtic, 

-  When  the  saint's  tomb  was  opened  in  1827,  figures  of  these 
birds  were  found  worked  in  cloth  of  gold  on  the  episcopal  vest- 
ments which  wrapped  his  body.     Raine's  St,  CtUhbert  (1828). 


176  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

by  these  traits  of  other  samtly  persons  of  deeply 
sympathetic  nature — of  Hugh  of  Lincoln,  followed 
by  his  tame  swan,  of  Anselm  protecting  the  leveret, 
of  Francis  of  Assisi  conversing  familiarly  with  the 
fowls  of  the  air  and  the  beasts  of  the  field  as  with 
brothers  and  sisters.  But  if  the  '  I '  was  thus  strong 
and  deep,  the  '  not  I '  was  not  less  marked. 
'  Not  I,  but  Christ  liveth  in  me.'  His  fervour  at 
the  celebration  of  the  Holy  Sacrament  manifested 
itself  even  to  tears.  '  He  imitated,'  says  Bede,  '  the 
Lord's  Passion  which  he  commemorated  by  offering 
himself  a  sacrifice  to  God  in  contrition  of  heart.' 
He  died  with  Christ  that  he  might  live  with  Christ." 
{^Leaders  in  the  Northern  ChurcJi.  p.  81.) 


177 


CHAPTER  Xr. 

THIi  END  OF  THE  COLUMBAN  EPISCOPATE  IN  NORTH- 
UMDRIA — THE  DIOCESE  OF  LINDISFARNE  NORTH 
OF  THE  TWEED — MELROSE — COLDINCIHAM — ABER- 
CORN — THE  SEE  OF  CANDIDA  CASA  AS  AN  ENGLISH 
FOUNDATION. 

The  Scottish  episcopate  in  Bernicia  lasted  not  more 
than  thirty  years.  Aidan,  marked  above  most  men 
by  the  "  sweet  reasonableness "  of  the  Gospel,  by 
unselfishness,  humility,  and  simplicity  of  life,  came 
from  lona  in  635,  and  laboured  unceasingly  till  651. 
The  work  done  by  him  was  indeed  wonderful.  It  is 
of  him  Bishop  Lightfoot  declared^  "  Not  Augustine, 
but  x\idan,  is  the  true  apostle  of  England."  His 
staff  of  clergy  was  largely  recruited  from  the  Scottish 
monks,  and  from  these  he  appointed  the  masters 
of  the  monastic  schools  which  he  established  for  the 
education  of  the  children  of  the  Angles.  His  suc- 
cessor, Finan  (652 — 661),  was  also  a  monk  from 
lona.  He  was  resolute  and  even  "fierce"  in  his 
maintenance  of  the  traditions  of  his  forefathers. 
When  Ronan,  a  fellow-countryman,  who  had  travelled 
in  Italy  and  Gaul  and  had  come  back  with  altered 

M 


lyS  J  HE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

views,  contended  with  him  on  behalf  of  the  Easter 
computation  which  prevailed  upon  the  Continent, 
he  treated  him  with  indignant  protests.  Like  his  two 
predecessors,  the  third  bishop,  Colman  (66 1),  was 
a  Scot,  and,  like  them,  unyielding  in  his  adherence 
to  the  Scottish  usages.  It  was  in  the  third  year 
of  his  episcopate  that  the  assembly  was  held  at 
Whitby,  which  prjictically  decided  the  question, 
and  established  the  supremacy  of  the  Roman  rule 
in  Northumbria.  Bede's  interesting  narrative  of  that 
eventful  meeting  has  been  often  related. ^  Though 
Wilfrid's  overbearing  zeal,  and  more  particularly  his 
insolence  towards  the  memory  of  St.  Columba,  are 
painful  to  observe,  yet  he  had,  on  the  whole,  the 
best  of  the  argument.  But,  however  the  arguments 
on  each  side  may  have  been  regarded  by  the  listeners, 
the  practical  question  was  settled  by  King  Oswy, 
when  he  declared  in  language,  in  which  the  humor- 
ous plainly  blended  with  the  serious,  "You  both 
acknowledge  that  it  was  not  to  Columba  but  to  Peter 
that  the  Lord  said,  '  To  thee  will  I  give  the  keys 
of  the  kingdom  of*heaven ' ;  and  I  tell  you  that  he 
is  a  doorkeeper  whom  I  am  unwilling  to  gainsay  ; 
but,  as  far  as  I  know  and  have  the  power,  I  desire 
to  be  obedient  to  his  injunctions,  lest  haply,  when 
1  come  to  the  gates  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven, 
there  may  be  no  one  to  unlock,  if  he  is  unfriendly 
who  is  shown  to  hold  the  keys." 

And  so  Colman  departed  from  Lindisfarne,  accom- 

1  And   nowhere   better   than  in  Brighl's    Chapters   of  Early 
English  History^  chap.  vi. 


COLMAN  S    DEPARTURE    FROM    LINDISFARNE.      l'j() 

panied  by  the  whole  of  his  Scottish  brethren  and 
about  thirty  attached  monks  of  AngHc  nationaUty. 
Some  of  the  bones  of  the  founder,  Aidan,  were  rever- 
ently taken  with  them,  and  they  travelled  the  sad 
journey  of  defeated  men  to  lona.  It  may  well  be 
that  the  House  at  lona  was  unable  to  permanently 
maintain  so  large  an  addition  to  the  community  as  was 
thus  suddenly  thrust  upon  it.  At  any  rate,  Coiman 
before  long  removed  his  monks  to  Ireland,  and  settled 
them  in  Innisboftin  (the  "  island  of  the  white  heifer  "), 
situated  two  or  three  miles  off  the  nearest  point  of  the 
coast  of  Mayo,  and  wholly  exposed  to  the  wild  sweep 
of  the  Atlantic.  After  a  time,  according  to  Bede,  dis- 
sensions arose  between  the  Irish  and  English  monks, 
the  latter  complaining  that  the  Irish  used  to  shirk  the 
harvest  work  by  leaving  the  island  in  autumn  and  going 
about  among  friends,  and  that  then  on  their  return, 
when  winter  set  in,  they  sought  to  lay  claim  to  a  share 
in  the  fruit  of  the  others'  labours.  Coiman  solved  the 
ditiftculty  by  buying  a  small  piece  of  land  from  a  chief 
on  the  mainland,  and  building  there  a  monastery  for 
his  Englishmen. 1  He  himself  remained  at  Innisboffin 
till  his  death,  which  event  has  been  placed  by  the  Irish 
chronicler,  Tighernach  of  Clonmacnois,   in  the  year 

1  The  English  monastery  of  Mayo,  known  as  "Mayo  of  the 
Saxons,"  increased  in  size  and  importance,  and  afterwards  became 
the  seat  of  a  bishopric.  St.  Gerald,  an  Englishman,  is  said  to 
have  been  the  first  bishop.  Innisboffin  derives  its  name,  according 
to  the  general  belief,  from  a  white  "water-cow  "  that  lived  in  a 
lake  on  the  island,  and  indeed  still  lives  there,  if  one  may  ac- 
cept the  word  of  the  islanders.  Compare  the  story  told  at  p.  78. 
See  Bishop  Healy's  Insula  Sanctorum,  etc.,  p.  531.  In  acreage 
Innisboffin  is  a  very  little  larger  than  lona. 


l8o  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

676.     Thus  closed  in  Northumbria  the  mission  of  the 
Scottish  Church  in  its  independence  of  Rome. 

^Fen  from  the  Scotic  Church,  whether  from  Ireland 
direct  or  through  its  houses  in  North  Britain,  con- 
tinued from  time  to  time  to  do  good  work  for  England, 
but  after  the  departure  of  Colman  it  was  only  as 
adopted  children  of  the  Roman  mission.  Yet  the 
inestimable  services  of  the  original  Scotic  mission  can 
never  be  forgotten.  The  mission  begun  with  Aidan 
did  its  work  "  with  a  rare  simplicity  of  purpose.  It 
brought  religion  straight  home  to  men's  hearts  by  sheer 
power  of  love  and  self-sacrifice  ;  it  held  up  before 
them,  in  the  unconscious  goodness  and  nobleness  of 
its  representatives,  the  moral  evidence  of  Christianity. 
It  made  them  feel  what  it  was  to  be  taught  and  cared 
for  in  the  life  spiritual  by  pastors  who  before  all  things 
were  the  disciples  and  ministers  of  Christ."  ^ 

One  other  glimpse  we  get  of  Melrose  from  the  pages 
of  Bede,  and  we  eagerly  take  advantage  of  it,  as  after 
leaving  Bede  we  shall  be  compelled  to  content  our- 
selves with  a  few  meagre  notices  of  the  chroniclers. 
We  shall  then  pass  from  the  clear  light  of  his  invalu- 
able records,  and  shall  have  no  choice  but  to  grope 
about  in  gloom  with  only  a  few  definite  landmarks 
to  guide  us. 

Provision  was  sometimes  made  in  the  monasteries 

of  Celtic  foundation  for  monks  who,  for  a  longer  or 

shorter  period,  desired  such  seclusion  for  the  purposes 

of  devotion  and  the  practice  of  increased  austerities, 

^  Bright,  Chapters^  dc,  p.  204. 


DRYTTTfrET-M    COISIES    TO    IJFE    AGAIN.  t8i 

as  could  not  be  had  by  those  living  in  community. 
The  seeking  of  a  "  desert "  (as  such  places  of  retire- 
ment were  called)  is  a  common  feature  in  the  lives  of 
Irish  saints.  In  lona,  a  place  at  some  little  distance 
from  the  monastic  buildings  was  called  the  "  desert."  A 
story,  related  by  Bede  {Eaies,  Hisf.^  lib.  v.,  c.  1 3),  shows 
us  that  at  the  monastery  of  Melrose  a  similar  practice 
existed.  A  good  man  named  Dryhthelm,  who  belonged 
to  a  district  that  has  been  commonly  (though  not  satis- 
factorily) identified  with  Cunningham  in  Ayrshire,  fell 
ill,  and  after  some  days  died  in  the  beginning  of  the 
night.  Early  next  morning  he  came  to  life  again,  and 
sat  up,  to  the  dismay  of  the  mourners,  who,  with  the 
exception  of  his  loving  wife,  all  fled  precipitately.  After 
dividing  his  property  into  three  parts— one  of  which 
was  given  to  his  wife,  one  to  his  children,  and  one  to 
the  poor — he  repaired  to  the  monastery  at  Melrose, 
where  he  continued  till  he  died  a  second  time,  an 
event  which  the  Saxon  CJironicIe  places  at  the  year 
693.  Bede  relates  at  great  length  what  Dryhthelm 
declared  he  saw  in  his  disembodied  state.  The  teach- 
ing of  his  experiences  differs  in  nothing  essential  from 
the  fully-developed  Romish  doctrine  of  purgatory,  and 
it  is  expressly  insisted  on  that  many  are  relieved  before 
the  day  of  judgment  "  by  the  prayers,  alms,  and  fasting 
of  the  living,  but  more  especially  by  masses."  ^     What 

^  The  visions  of  the  Irish  monk  Fursey  (Bede,  Eccles.  HisL, 
lib.  iii.,  c.  19)  of  an  earlier  date  bear  the  same  complexion,  but 
are  not  nearly  so  definite  in  their  teaching.  I  suspect  Bede,  who 
had  always  an  eye  to  pressing  a  point  of  dogma,  was  anxious  to 
advance  a  view  which  was  as  yet  less  distinctly  pronounced  in 
the  Irish  Church. 


l82  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    TN    SCOTLAND. 

he  saw  and  heard  in  the  world  of  spirits,  Dryhthelm 
related  to  Aldfrid,  king  of  Northurnbria,  among  others, 
and  it  was  at  the  king's  request  he  was  admitted  into 
Melrose.  In  after  times,  when  the  king  happened  to 
be  in  those  parts,  he  very  often  visited  Melrose  to  hear 
the  holy  man. 

A  place  of  greater  seclusion  was  granted  to  Dryh- 
thelm in  the  monastery,  where  he  practised  special 
austerities,  in  daily  fastings,  and  in  a  form  of  self- 
inflicted  penance  that  one  finds  often  recurring  in  the 
records  of  that  period — the  standing  in  cold  water 
while  prayers  or  the  Psalter  were  recited.  Dryhthelm 
would  go  up  to  the  middle,  and  sometimes  up  to  the 
neck,  in  the  Tweed,  and  stand  there  as  long  as  he 
could  endure  it.  In  winter  he  broke  the  ice  for  this 
purpose.  And  when  those  who  witnessed  him  stand- 
ing in  the  river  with  pieces  of  ice  floating  about  would 
say,  *'  It  is  wonderful.  Brother  Dryhthelm,  that  you  are 
able  to  endure  such  extreme  cold ;  "  he  would  simply 
answer,  for  he  was  a  man  of  simple  wit,  "  I  have  seen 
greater  cold."  And  when  they  said,  "  It^  is  wonderful 
that  you  can  endure  such  hardship;"  he  would  reply, 
*'I  have  seen  greater  hardship."  And  these  things  he 
said,  doubtless  remembering  the  hail  and  snow  that 
formed  part  of  the  purgatorial  torments  he  had  wit- 
nessed, a  cold  so  cutting  that  the  wretched  sufferers 
would  leap  back  into  the  flames.  On  leaving  the  river, 
it  was  his  practice  not  to  put  off  his  wet  or  frozen 
garments  till  they  had  dried  upon  his  body. 

Ethelwold,  who  afterwards  became  bishop  of  I.in- 
disfarne,  was  abbat  of  Melrose  at  the  time  of  Dryh- 


AR^riSTIC    WORK.  183 

thelm's  admission.  He  had  formerly  been  a  minister 
of  St.  Cuthbert ;  that  is,  as  I  take  it,  he  occupied  the 
honourable  position  of  personal  companion  and  atten- 
dant of  St.  Cuthbert,  an  office  probably  similar  to  that 
which  we  may  remember  was  in  the  life  of  St.  Columba 
filled  for  him  by  the  faithful  Diarmit.  And  in  honour 
of  St.  Cuthbert  he  had  himself  designed  a  beautiful 
cross  of  polished  stone,  which  formed  one  of  the 
treasures  of  Lindisfarne,  and  which  accompanied  the 
other  sacred  relics  in  their  many  wanderings.  To  his 
artistic  taste  also  is  due  the  splendidly  ornamented  and 
jewelled  cover  ^  of  the  "  Lindisfarne  Gospels,"  or 
''Book  of  Durham,"  which  manuscript  (now  preserved 
in  the  British  Museum)  for  the  beauty  of  its  decorative 
ornaments  stands  only  second  to  the  "  Book  of  Kells," 
the  chief  glory  of  the  manuscript  collection  in  the 
Library  of  Trinity  College,  Dublin.  The  manual  work 
of  the  scribe  of  the  Lindisfarne  Gospels,  Eadfrid 
(Ethelwold's  predecessor  in  the  bishopric),  is  truly 
exquisite,  but  every  minutest  feature  of  the  ornament 
is  characteristically  Scotic,  and  was  the  unquestionable 
outcome  of  the  artistic  tradition  of  the  Scotic  founda- 
tion. No  relic  of  such  artistic  work  has  come  down 
to  us  from  the  ancient  monastery  of  Melrose  ;  but  we 
need  not  hesitate  to  believe  that  there,  as  in  the 
mother  house  of  Lindisfarne,  at  least  under  such  a 
lover  of  art  as  Ethel  wold,  the  illuminative  work  of  the 
scriptorium  would  not  have  been  neglected. 

It  may,  with  much  reason,  be  questioned  whether 
1  See  pp.- 317— 320. 


184  I  TIE    CF.T.TIC    CHURCir    IN    SCOTLAND. 

exact  boundaries  of  the  diocese  of  Lindisfarne  north 
of  the  Tweed  were  ever  clearly  defined.  A  more 
correct  way  of  putting  the  inquiry  seems  to  me,  In 
what  parts  of  the  country  north  of  Tweed  was  the 
authority  of  the  bishop  of  Lindisfarne  acknowledged  ? 
In  default  of  earher  sources  of  information,  we  have 
to  resort  to  Simeon  of  Durham,  a  twelfth-century 
writer;  but  I  see  no  reason  to  suppose  that  he, 
making  use  of  sources  of  information  not  now  avail- 
able, has  not  indicated  the  actual  facts  with  sub- 
stantial accuracy.  Generally,  then,  we  may  put  it 
that  from  the  east  coast  to  where  the  river  Leader 
flows  into  the  Tweed  a  little  below  Melrose,  was 
under  the  jurisdiction  of  the  bishop  of  Lindis- 
farne. Then  came  lands,  and  even  wide  districts 
attached  in  some  way  to  monastic  houses,  which 
acknowledged  his  rule,  as  Melrose  and  its  lands  to 
the  west  of  the  Leader,  and  the  wide  stretch  of 
country  from  the  northern  slopes  of  the  Lammermuir 
Hills,  to  the  mouth  of  the  Esk  (at  the  town  we  now 
call  Musselburgh),  bounded  on  the  north  by  the  Firth 
of  Forth,  which  district  Simeon  speaks  of  as  pertain- 
ing to  St.  Baldred's  monastery  of  Tyninghame,  near 
Dunbar.  Roughly,  then,  our  modern  counties  of 
Berwickshire  and  Haddingtonshire  formed  the  Scot- 
tish portion  of  the  diocese  of  Lindisfarne :  while 
outside  these  bounds  the  authority  of  the  bishop  was 
acknowledged  further  west  at  Edinburgh,  and  at  the 
religious  house  of  Abercorn  higher  up  the  Forth,  and 
at  the  two  Jeddarts  by  the  Teviot  in  the  south. 

Visitors  to  the  site  of  the  old  monastic  house  on 


THE    PRINCESS    ETHET,DREDA.  185 

the  lofty  sea-beaten  cliffs  at  Coldingham  should  recall 
that  at  that  spot  the  Princess  Etheldreda,  whose 
memory  was  afterwards  so  closely  associated  with 
Ely,  spent  the  first  year  of  her  conventual  life  (671). 
She  had  been  twice  married — married  at  least  in  name, 
for  she  had  made  a  firm  resolution  of  perpetual 
virginity ;  and  the  unhappiness  caused  by  such  a 
union  with  her  second  husband,  Egfrid,  king  of 
Northumbria,  soon  brought  about  a  divorce  J  Aebba, 
abbess  of  Coldingham,  was  King  Egfrid's  aunt,  and  it 
was  under  her  Etheldreda  placed  herself  when  she 
took  the  veil,  which  she  received  at  Coldingham  at 
the  hand  of  the  famous  Wilfrid.  Thomas,  the  monk 
of  Ely,  in  the  reign  of  Henry  II.,  who  has  written  at 
length  about  her  life,  alleges  that  the  king,  her  husband, 
made  an  attempt  in  person  to  carry  her  off  from 
Coldingham,  and  that  she,  accompanied  by  two  sisters 
of  the  convent,  had  to  leave  the  buildings  and  seek 
safety  in  the  neighbourhood  for  a  time.  Perhaps  it 
was  due  to  this  danger  that  she  removed  from  the 
kingdom  of  Egfrid,  to  her  old  house  in  the  south.  At 
any  rate,  she  herself  was  soon  after  made  an  abbess  "  in 
the  country  called  Ely." 

As  not  unconnected  with  our  northern  Church,  we 
may  notice  that  Etheldreda  is  said  to  have  made  with 
her  own  hands,  as  a  gift  for  St.  Cuthbert,  a  magnificent 
stole  and  maniple,  adorned  with  gold  and  precious 
stones.     In  after  years  the  abbess  used  to  reproach 

1  Wilfrid's  conduct  in  this  affair  contrasts  most  unfavourably 
with  Cohimba's  action  in  bringing  a  wife  to  a  sense  of  her  duty 
to  her  husband,  as  recorded  by  Adamnan  (lib,  ii.,  c.  42). 


t86  the    CELTIC    CTTURCTI    IX    SCOTT. AND. 

herself  for  having  worn  splendid  and  costly  necklaces 
in  her  youth,  and  regarded  a  tumour  in  the  neck 
from  which  she  suffered  as  a  sign  that  God  by  this 
chastisement  absolved  her  from  the  guilt  of  that 
youthful  vanity,  ^^ay  we  venture  on  the  conjecture 
that  her  discarded  jewels  went  to  the  adornment  of 
St.  Cuthbert's  stole  and  maniple? 

It  was  only  six  or  seven  years  after  the  departure  of 
the  royal  Etheldreda  (indeed,  according  to  the  Saxov 
CJiro7iicle^  in  the  very  year  of  her  death,  679),  that  a 
terrible  calamity  fell  upon  the  monastery  at  Colding- 
ham,  which  was  burned  to  the  ground.  Bede  tells  us 
that  the  fire  originated  through  carelessness,  but  goes  on 
to  show  that  what  happened  was  really  a  Divine  judg- 
ment on  the  self-indulgent  lives  of  the  inmates.  There 
were  always  special  dangers  attaching  to  the  system  of 
double  monasteries,  but  it  does  not  seem  as  if,  in 
this  instance,  the  laxity  of  discipline  was  directly 
attributable  to  the  appropinquity  of  the  two  houses. 
One  of  the  monks  of  Coldingham,  a  man  of  the 
Scotic  race,  and  bearing,  like  the  biographer  of 
Columba,  the  name  of  Adamnan,  was  wont  to  practise 
unusual  austerities,  being  gready  given  to  vigils  and 
prayers,  and  taking  food  only  twice  in  the  week,  on 
the  Lord's  Day  and  on  Thursday.  One  day  he  and  a 
brother  monk  had  occasion  to  travel  to  some  distance 
from  Coldingham,  and  as  they  returned  and  came 
within  sight  of  the  lofty  buildings  of  the  convent 
{aedificia  suMimtfer  erectd)^  Adamnan  burst  into  tears, 
and,  on  being  questioned  by  his  companion,  he 
declared  that  a  devouring  fire  was  about  to  consume 


A    MYSTERIOUS    VISITOR.  T87 

all  those  fair  buildings.  This  saying  being  reported 
to  Aebba,  the  mother  of  the  community,  she  sent  for 
Adamnan,  and  inquired  of  him  how  he  came  to 
speak  as  he  had  done.  Then  he  told  how,  while 
watching  one  night  and  singing  the  Psalms,  an 
unknown  person  had  suddenly  appeared  and  revealed 
to  him  that  all  except  himself,  both  men  and  women, 
indulged  themselves  habitually  in  slothful  sleep,  or, 
if  they  were  awake,  were  only  awake  "unto  sin." 
"I  have  looked,"  said  the  mysterious  visitor,  "into 
every  one's  chamber  and  bed."  The  rooms  built  for 
prayer  and  study  had  become — so  he  declared — 
places  of  feasting,  drinking,  gossip  and  story-telling 
{fahulationes)^  and  other  seductions.  The  nuns,  he 
went  on  to  complain,  with  lives  dedicated  to  God's 
service,  spent  their  leisure  time  in  weaving  for  them- 
selves raiment  of  delicate  texture,  in  which  they  would 
adorn  themselves  like  brides,  or  even  thus  seek  to 
attract  the  favour  of  strangers  {externorum  7'irorwji). 
Adamnan  comforted  the  abbess  by  telling  her  that  the 
evil  would  not  happen  in  her  days  ;  and  a  return  to  a 
stricter  discipline  was  shortly  afterwards  effected.  But 
after  Aebba' s  death,  as  Bede  relates,  the  inmates  of 
the  monastery  went  back  to  their  evil  ways,  and  the 
last  state  was  worse  than  the  first ;  and  then  came  the 
destruction  of  the  house  by  fire.^ 

In  estimating  the  historical  value  of  the  narrative  here 

1  "Fire  from  heaven,"  says  the  Saxon  Chromcle,  at  A. d.  679. 
The  date  commonly  assigned  for  St.  Aebba's  death — 683 — does 
not  square  with  the  story  related  by  Bede.  The  burning  of  the 
monastery  must  have  been  later.     See  Piright,  Chapters,  etc.^  p. 


1 88  THE    CELTIC   CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

given,  we  must  remember  that  the  reproaches  heaped 
upon  the  sisters  and  brethren  of  the  Coldingham 
convent  came  from  the  mouth  of  a  rigid  ascetic, 
whose  rule  of  food  only  twice  a  week  might  very 
easily  beget  a  spirit  of  criticism  that  was  unjust  to 
others ;  and  that  he  had  nothing  worse  to  tell  makes 
one  believe  that  after  all  the  laxity  of  the  monastic 
discipHne  may  have  been  much  exaggerated.  A 
really  valuable  piece  of  information  is  that  which 
shows  us  the  nuns  occupied  in  fine  work  at  the  loom. 
And  if  it  be  true  that  men  not  belonging  to  the 
institution  were  liable  to  be  affected  by  the  charms  of 
the  sisters  in  fine  raiment,  it  shows  us  that  the  cloister 
was  not  as  strict  as  it  came  afterwards  to  be  in  most 
religious  houses. 

There  is  yet  one  other  incident  of  this  period 
connected  with  Coldingham  that  deserves  notice. 
Egfrid,  after  his  separation  from  Etheldreda,  had 
married  again.  And  Ermenburga,  his  second 
wife,  shared  with  her  husband  in  a  strong  dislike  to 
the  assumptions  of  Wilfrid.  It  is  outside  our  scope 
to  tell  his  story,  but  it  is  well  known  with  what 
contempt  his  "  bull,"  procured  at  Rome,  was  rejected 
by  the  king  and  his  witan.  Wilfrid  was  imprisoned, 
and  the  reliquary,  which  he  used  to  wear  round  his 
neck,  appropriated  by  Ermenburga.  This  precious 
talisman  hung  in  her  bedroom,  or  in  her  carriage 
when  she  travelled.  On  the  occasion  of  a  stately 
progress  through  his  dominions,  the  king  and  queen 
arrived  at  the  monastery  of  St.  Aebba  at  Coldingham. 
There  the  queen  took  ill  with  some  kind  of  convul- 


CONSECRATION    OF    TRUMWIN.  189 

sions,  and  was  at  the  puint  of  death.  ^  Their  hostess,  St. 
Aebba,  beheved  the  ilhiess  was  a  judgment  on  the  king 
and  queen  for  their  treatment  of  Wilfrid.  She  declared 
that  if  Wilfrid  were  released  and  his  case  of  relics  re- 
stored to  him,  the  queen  would  recover.  And  as  she 
counselled  it  was  done,  and  the  queen  was  restored  to 
health  as  the  holy  abbess  had  foretold.  It  adds  to  the 
interest  of  this  incident  on  Scottish  soil  if  we  realize  that 
at  this  very  time  Wilfrid  was  only  some  fifteen  miles 
distant  a  close  prisoner  of  the  king,  in  chains  at  Dunbar. 
We  have  already  spoken  of  Abercorn  (a  few  miles 
higher  up  the  Forth  than  what  is  now  South 
Queensferry)  as  a  monastic  foundation  under  the 
jurisdiction  of  the  bishops  of  Lindisfarne.  In  68 1, 
a  bishop,  named  Trumwin,  was  consecrated  by 
Archbishop  Theodore  for  the  extreme  northern  part 
of  Egfrid's  dominions.  His  residence  was  to  be  at 
Abercorn,  and  his  labours  were  to  be  extended  to  the 
region  of  the  Picts,  over  which  Egfrid  claimed  the 
sovereignty — a  sovereignty  which  was,  however,  rather 
nominal  than  real.  But  Trumwin's  northern  episcopate 
was  of  short  duration.  In  685  Egfrid  with  an  army 
advanced  to  devastate  the  country  of  the  Picts  north  of 
the  Forth,  and  being  cleverly  lured  among  the  hills 
by  the  enemy,  who  had  made  a  show  of  flight,  he 
was  slain,  and  his  troops  routed  with  great  slaughter 
at   Dunnichen   in   Forfarshire.-     Trumwin's   position 

^  The  violent  partisan  Eddi,  in  his  Life  of  St,  Wilfrid,  speaks 
of  this  illness  as  a  demoniacal  possession. 

-  Skene  {Celtic  Scotland,  vol.  i.,  p.  266)  connects  a  large 
number  of  stone  coffins  found  in  the  neighbourhood  with  the 
slaughter  of  this  battle. 


190  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLANlJ. 

became  untenable  at  Abercorn,  and  he  withdrew 
with  his  monks,  who  were  distributed  in  different 
monasteries.  He  himseh" retired  to  Whitby,  where  he 
remained  the  comfort  and  support  of  Elfleda,  the 
late  king's  sister,  who  had  succeeded  St.  Hilda  as 
abbess  of  the  double  foundation. 

Egfrid's  body,  according  to  Simeon  of  Durham 
{Hist.  Dim.  Eccles.^  lib.  i.,  c.  9),  was  buried  at  lona. 
He  was  an  able  king,  and  a  most  generous  benefactor 
of  the  Northumbrian  Church. ^ 

It  is  worthy  of  notice  that  Bede  does  not  tell  us 
where  King  Egfrid's  body  was  interred.  He,  with  his 
strong  convictions,  would  not  have  cared  to  think 
that  the  royal  friend  of  St.  Cuthbert,  and  the  founder 
of  bishoprics,  was  given  his  last  resting-place  among 
men  who  shaved  their  heads  like  Simon  Magus,  and 
kept  Easter  the  wrong  way.  We  cannot  doubt  that  the 
interment  in  lona  was  intended  by  the  victors  as  an 
honourable  distinction  for  the  body  of  the  vanquished 
king.  It  may  have  been  requested  by  the  abbat  of 
lona,  at  the  instance  of  Aldfrid,  the  king's  brother  and 
successor,  who  either  was  then,  or  certainly  had  been 
shortly  before,  a  guest  of  the  monastery.  It  was  a 
long  journey  across  difficult  country  from  the  spot 
where  he  fell  to  the  remote  island  in  the  west. 
Aldfrid,  who  succeeded  to  the  throne,  is  described  by 
Bede  as  a  man  "  most  learned  in  the  Scriptures."     He 

^  The  sympathizers  with  Wilfrid  could  not  readily  forgive 
him,  and  in  Eadmer's  Lift  of  St.  Wilfrid  (chap,  xliii.),  we  are  told 
that  that  saint,  when  celebrating  mass  in  Sussex,  saw  two  demons 
carrying  oft"  the  soul  of  Egfrid  from  the  fatal  battle-field  to  the 
torments  of  hell. 


BISHOPRIC    OF   CANDIDA    CASA.  I9I 

had  gone  for  the  sake  of  study  to  lona.^  And  it  was 
there  in  all  probability  that  he  made  that  acquaintance 
with  Adamnan  which  paved  the  way  to  the  successful 
mission  of  the  latter  to  the  king's  court  with  a  view 
to  urge  the  release  of  his  captive  fellow-countrymen, 
whom  Egfrid  had  carried  off  from  Ireland  in  his  raid 
upon  that  country  the  year  before  his  fatal  expedition 
against  the  Picts.-  The  king's  known  love  of  learning 
doubtless  prompted  the  gift,  which  Adamnan  after- 
wards made  to  him,  of  a  copy  of  the  work,  Concenimg 
the  Holy  Places^  already  noticed.-' 

It  belongs  to  the  department  of  civil  history  to  tell 
how  the  power  of  the  Northumbrian  kings  became 
extended  to  the  south-west  of  Scotland.  But  the 
revival  of  the  bishopric  of  Candida  Casa  under 
English  bishops  has  here  to  be  recorded.  The  fifth 
and  last  book  of  Bede's  Ecclesiastical  History  brings  the 
story  down  to  the  year  732.  And  there  (hb.  v.,  c.  23), 
speaking  of  the  four  bishoprics  which  then  existed  in 
the  Northumbrian  kingdom — viz.,  York,  Lindisfarne, 
Hexham,  and  Candida  Casa — he  tells  us  that  the  last- 
named  had  "lately"  become  an  episcopal  see  on 
account  of  the  increased  number  of  the  faithful  in  that 
part,  and  he  mentions  as  its  first  bishop  Pechthelm, 
who  had  been  a  deacon  or  monk  of  Aldhelm,  bishop 
of  Sherborne.  Hence  it  has  been  commonly  stated 
that  the  see  was  revived  under  the  English  about  730. 
We  have  no  evidence  as  to  whether  the  old  British 

1  See  diaonymij\.\<>LifeofSLCuthbcrt,%  28  ;  and  Bede's  Z//^  (?/" 
Si.  Cul/ibeii,  lib.  i.,  c.  24. 

••^  Sec  p»  189.  '^  See  pp.  148—151. 


192  THE   CELTIC   CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

succession,  originating  in  St.  Ninian,  had  been  main- 
tained up  to  this  time  ;  nor,  indeed,  is  it  certain, 
though  it  is  probable,  that  the  monastery,  once  so 
famous  as  a  school  of  learning,  continued  to  exist.  Its 
ancient  repute  for  learning,  and  for  sanctity,  as  con- 
taining the  relics  of  St.  Ninian,  would  have  sufficed  to 
determine  the  choice  of  Whithorn  for  the  bishop's 
see.  The  Anglic  succession  of  bishops  of  Candida 
Casa  was  continued  in  the  persons  of  four  other 
bishops  for  some  seventy  years,  after  which  the 
frequent  and  destructive  raids  of  the  Picts  and  Scots 
made  the  position  untenable  for  the  English. ^ 

^  The  aulhoritids  fur  Uicse  staLciiieiUs,  and  for  the  names  of  the 
successive  bishops,  will  be  found  in  Bishop  Forbes'  Lives  of  Si. 
Ninian  and  St.  Kcntigcrn  {Hisiorians  of  Scolland,  vol.  v., 
p.  xliv),  and  reference  may  ho.  made  to  William  of  Malmesbury 
{Gcst.  Pontifc.  An^/.,  lib.  iii.,  c.  118),  cited  by  Skene  {Celtic 
Scotland,  vol.  ii.,  p.  225).  Little  beyond  what  has  been 
stated  above  is  known  of  the  Church  in  Scotland  and  the  neigh- 
bouring districts  during  this  period.  Skene,  with  reason, 
connects  the  numerous  dedications  to  St.  Cuthbert  and  St. 
Oswald  in  the  south-west  of  Scotland  with  this  period.  See  also 
Grub  (^rv/c'j-.  Hist,  of  Scotland,  vol.  i.,  pp.  121 -4). 


193 


CHAPTER  XII. 

THE  CHURCH  IN  SCOTLAND  IN  THE  NINTH,  TENTH,  AND 
ELEVENTH  CENTURIES — THE  CULDEES. 

From  the  writings  of  Adamnan  and  Bede,  the 
student  can  gather  materials  for  Hfe-hke  and  truthful 
pictures  of  the  condition  of  the  monastic  Church  in 
Scotland,  The  Church  in  the  western  islands  and 
highlands  is  clearly  figured  for  us  by  the  former,  the 
Church  in  Lothian  by  the  latter.  But  when  we  pass 
from  the  bright  light  of  their  vivid  presentations  of 
men  and  things,  we  at  once  enter  upon  a  lengthened 
period  of  gloom  and  obscurity,  through  which  we 
grope  our  way  with  difficulty,  and  from  which  the 
most  thorough  inquirers  emerge  with  but  little  know- 
ledge. A  few  names  of  bishops  or  monks,  a  few 
dates,  of  which  some  are  questionable,  a  few  events 
associated  with  a  monastery  here  and  a  church  there, 
all  recorded  with  the  brevity  of  the  baldest 
chronicler,  supply  us  with  almost  the  whole  of  our 
authentic  information  for  some  three  hundred  years 
and  more.  The  legendary  tales  which  we  find  in 
after  times  connected  with  the  names  of  certain 
Celtic  saints  who    make   their   shadowy  appearance 

N 


•^ 


194  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

during  this  extended  period,  rarely  reward  an  investi- 
gator with  even  the  smallest  residuum  of  ascertained 
fact.  Adamnan  died  in  704,  Bede  in  735.  It  was 
probably  in  1068  that  the  Saxon  princess,  Margaret, 
entered  Scotland.  With  that  event  the  history  of  the 
mediaeval  Church  in  Scotland  makes  a  definite  depar- 
ture. But  the  interval  between  the  death  of  Bede  and 
the  latter  of  these  dates  lies  as  a  long  stretch  of  time, 
of  which  the  authentic  notices  concerning  ecclesiastical 
affairs  could  be  given  in  a  few  pages.  Mr.  Hill 
Burton  is  justified  in  calling  this  "  the  dark  period  " 
of  Scottish  history.^  If  the  Church  in  Scotland 
during  this  period  of  its  history  was  not  absolutely 
barren  of  Hterature,  no  remains  of  any  of  its  writers 
have  come  down  to  us.  But  we  must  make  the  best 
of  what  we  have ;  and  we  thankfully  recognize  the 
value  of  the  brief  references  to  Scotland  that  are  to 
be  found  in  the  Irish  annalists.  These,  with  a  very 
few  notices  from  other  quarters  and  later  sources,  are 
all  the  materials  at  our  disposal. 

The  general  character  of  the  information  thus 
supplied  may  be  better  exhibited  by  a  few  examples 
than  by  any  description.     Thus,  we  read — 

"  727.  The  relics  of  Adamnan  removed  to  Ireland,  and 
the  law  renewed."  Tighernach^  of  Cloiiniacnoise,  wJio 
died  1088. 

"  The  law "  referred  to  was  probably  the  Cain 
Adhaiimain.,  called  also  the  Lex  Innocentiiim,  or  Law 
of  the  Harmless,  which,  as  we  have  seen  (p.  145),  was 

^  History  of  Scotland^  vol.  i.,  p.  389. 


ECCLESIASTICAL    REFERENCES.  195 

enacted  under  the  influence  of  Adamnan  for  exempt- 
ing women  from  military  service.  The  evil  here 
condemned  is  to  be  found  among  the  Picts  of  Galloway 
as  late  as  the  twelfth  century.^ 

"  737.  Death  of  Ronain,  abbat  of  Cindgaradh  "  [/.  e. 
Kingarth  in  Bute]. 

"  Failbe,  son  of  Giiairi,  heir  [/.  e.  co-arb]  of  Maelrubha, 
in  Applecross,  drowned  at  sea  with  twenty-two  of  his 
sailors. " —  Tigherjiach. 

"766.  Suibne,  abbat  of  la  [/.  e.  Hy  or  lona],  comes  to 
Ireland." — Annals  of  Ulster. 

"790.  Artgal,  son  of  Cathail,  King  of  Connaught, 
died  at  Hy."— 7^. 

"  794.  Ravaging  of  all  the  islands  of  Britain  by  the 
heathen." — lb. 

"800.  The  placing  of  the  relics  of  Ronain,  son  of 
Berich,  in  a  shrine  of  gold  and  silver." — lb. 

"  802.     Hy,  of  Columkille,  burned  by  the  heathen."— 7^. 

"  806.  The  community  {^faviilid)  of  Hy,  sixty-eight  in 
number,  slain  by  the  heathen." — Ih. 

"  807.  Construction  of  the  new  city  [/.  e.  monastery] 
of  Columkille  in  Kells." — lb. 

"818.  Diarmaid,  abbat  of  la,  went  to  Alban  with  the 
shrine  of  Columkille." — Chronicle  of  the  Scots. 

"825.  Martyrdom  of  Blathmac  by  the  pagans  in  Hy 
of  Columkille." — Annals  of  Ulster. 

"831.  Diarmaid  goes  to  Erin  with  the  Mionna  \i.  e. 
as  is  supposed,  the  relics  other  than  the  body]  of  Colum- 
kille."—7^. 

"850.  In  the  seventh  year  of  his  [Kenneth's]  reign  he 
carries  relics  of  St.  Columba  to  the  church  which  he  had 
constructed  "  [at  Dunkeld]. — Chronicle  of  the  Picts. 

"  865.  Tuathal,  son  of  Artguso,  first  bishop  of  Fortren 
[z.  e.  the  kingdom  of  the  Picts]  and  abbat  of  Dunkeld, 
died." — Anftals  of  Ulster. 

"  ^7?>.     The  shrine  of  Columkille  and  all  his  reliquaries 

^  See  Robertson's  Statuta  Ecclesia  Scolicamr,  vol.  i.,  p. 
15- 


196  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

were  taken  [/.  c.  from  lona]  to  Erin  to  escape  the 
foreigners." — lb. 

"  908.  In  his  sixth  year  \i.  c.  about  908]  the  king, 
Constantine,  and  the  bishop,  Cellach,  solemnly  vowed  at 
the  Hill  of  Faith  \colUs  credulitatis\  to  preserve  the  laws 
and  discipline  of  the  faith,  and  the  rights  of  churches  and 
of  the  Gospels,  equally  with  the  Scots." — Chronicle  of  the 
Picts} 

"935.  Angus,  son  of  Muirchertach,  a  learned  man, 
anchorite,  and  abbat-elect  of  Zona,  died." — Annals  of  the 
Four  Masters. 

About  977.  Kenneth  "  gave  the  great  city  [/.  e. 
monastery]  of  Brechin  to  the  Lord." — Chronicle  of  the 
Picts. 

"986.  The  island  of  Columkille  plundered  by  the 
Danes  on  the  eve  of  the  Nativity,  and  the  abbat  and 
fifteen  clerics  slain." — Annals  of  Ulster. 

"  Maelruannaidh  Ua  Maeldoraigh,  lord  of  Cinel  Conall, 
went  over  the  sea  [?'.  e.  to  lona]  on  his  pilgrimage." — 
Anfials  of  the  Four  Masters. 

"  1027.  Dunkeld,  in  Alban,  entirely  burnt." — Aniials 
of  Ulster. 

"  1055.  Maelduin,  son  of  Gillandris,  bishop  of  Alban 
and  ordainer  of  the  clergy  to  the  Gael  (.?),  slept  in  Christ." — 
Tighenmch." 

These  entries,  of  very  varying  degrees  of  importance, 
are  exhibited  here,  as  they  appear  in  the  chroniclers, 
as  specimens  of  the  evidence  which  we  possess  for 
our  Scottish  Church  history  during  more  than  three 
hundred  years.  Upon  these  much  labour  and  ingenious 
comment  has  been  bestowed  by  our  historians.  Such 
notices  generally  possess  the  advantage,  denied  by 
Adamnan   and  scantily  supplied  by  Bede,  of  giving 


^  A  little  hill  near  Scone  was  the  scene  of  this  event. 
-  Reeves  {Historians  of  Scotland,  vol.  vi.,  p.  340)  renders  the 
■phxdiSe  gloria  cleri  Gaedhil. 


DECLINE    OF    lONA.  1 97 

US  helps  to  a  definite  chronology.  But  the  notices, 
even  of  events  that  keenly  stir  our  interest,  are  of  the 
meagrest  and  baldest  kind.  What  little  can  be  ex- 
tracted from  such  material  will  be  found,  with  con- 
jectures and  illustrations  of  varying  values,  in  the  pages 
of  Pinkerton  and  Skene. 

The  repeated  ravages  of  the  Danes  was  one  of  the 
main  causes  for  the  decline  of  the  influence  of  lona. 
The  head  of  the  Columban  houses  was  transferred 
from  lona  to  Kells  (in  County  Meath),  where  a  stone 
monastery  was  built  (807 — 814).  A  sense  of  insecurity 
and  overshadowing  fear  must  have  exercised  in  more 
or  less  degree  a  paralyzing  effect  upon  the  brother- 
hood. It  is  true  the  house  at  lona  was  rebuilt,  and 
now  of  stone.  The  shrine  of  Columba  was  brought 
back  (818);  but  after  seven  years  another  onslaught 
of  the  northern  pirates  resulted  in  the  martyrdom  of 
Blaithmac  (825).  The  centre  of  civil  power  was  now 
established  on  the  eastern  side  of  the  country  j  and 
the  chief  ecclesiastical  authority,  during  the  period 
with  which  we  are  dealing,  became  transferred — first 
to  Dunkeld  (850),  then,  perhaps,  to  Abernethy,  and, 
beyond  doubt,  finally  to  St.  Andrews. 

It  is  probably  to  the  second  half  of  the  ninth 
century  should  be  assigned  an  attack  of  the  Danes, 
which,  according  to  the  legend  of  *'St.  Adrian  and  his 
companions,"  resulted  in  the  slaughter  of  a  religious 
community  that  had  settled  in  the  Isle  of  May,  which 
lies  1  at  the  widest  part  of  the  opening  of  the  estuary 

^  The  island  is  about  a  mile  in  length  and  three-quarters  of  a 
mile  in  breadth.     It  is  about  six  miles  from  the  coast  of  Fife. 


198  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

of  the  Forth.  The  legend  abounds  in  grotesquely 
absurd  improbabilites  (see  p.  74).  St.  Adrian,  who 
was  of  royal  blood  and  born  in  Hungary,  visits  Scot- 
land with  6606  companions.  Mr.  Skene  expends 
here,  as  in  some  other  similar  cases,  much  misplaced 
ingenuity  in  attempting  to  show  that  Adrian  was  one 
of  the  Irish  missionaries.  There  is,  in  truth,  not  a 
particle  of  what  can  be  reasonably  called  evidence  in 
support  of  his  contention  ;  and  the  whole  story  might 
be  dismissed,  like  so  many  similar  tales  from  the 
legends  of  the  mediaeval  breviaries,  as  historically 
valueless,  were  it  not  that  the  local  tradition  certainly 
connected  the  later  foundation  in  the  Isle  of  May  with 
a  martyrdom  of  Christians  in  that  place,  and  there  are 
historical  reasons  for  thinking  that  such  an  attack  of 
the  DaneS;  in  the  reign  of  Constantine  (863 — 875),  the 
son  of  Kenneth  MacAlpin,  was  in  no  way  improbable. 
David  I.,  who  was  so  eminently  distinguished  for  the 
establishing  of  religious  houses,  was  wont  to  choose 
for  his  foundations  places  already  possessing  some 
sacred  associations,  and  it  was  perhaps  on  this 
account  that  he  made  the  grant  of  the  Isle  of  May  to 
the  monks  of  the  Benedictine  Abbey  of  Reading,  in 
Berkshire,  which  had  shortly  before  been  founded 
by  his  brother-in-law,  Henry  I.  of  England.  If  in 
David's  time  the  tradition  already  existed  that  Adrian 
was  a  native  of  Hungary  and  of  royal  race,  there  would 
be  a  further  reason  why  the  son  of  a  princess,  who  was 
herself  a  native  of  Hungary  (see  p.  277),  should 
honour  the  Hungarian  martyr  on  the  spot  assigned 
as  the  place  of  his  death. 


BURNING    OP'    MELROSE.  1 99 

The  legend  recounts  the  names  of  several  of  his 
companions ;  but  it  may  suffice  to  mention  the 
Hungarian  Monanus,  who,  it  is  said,  preached  the 
gospel  at  Inverry,  on  the  coast  of  Fife,  and  whose  name 
survives  in  the  parish  and  church  of  St.  Monans 
between  Ely  and  Pittenvveem.i  The  cultus  of  both 
St.  Adrian  and  St.  Monan  was  well  marked  in 
mediaeval  times.  Childless  wives  were  frequent  in 
their  devotions  at  the  Isle  of  May,  and  many  miracles 
(including  the  extrusion  of  a  barbed  arrow  from  the 
body  of  King  David  II.)  were  attributed  to  the  inter- 
cessions of  St.  Monan.  But  here  we  are  concerned 
only  with  the  possible  truth  of  the  martyrdom  by  the 
Danes ;  and  we  can  go  so  far  as  to  say  that  a  martyr- 
dom of  religious  in  the  Isle  of  May  is  by  no  means 
improbable  at  the  date  assigned. 

The  notices  of  the  Church  in  the  south  of  Scotland 
are  even  scantier  than  those  relating  to  the  parts  of 
the  country  under  Irish  influence,  and  within  the  ken 
of  the  Irish  chroniclers.  An  outstanding  event  was 
the  burning  of  Melrose,  about  the  middle  of  the  ninth 
century,  by  Kenneth  MacAlpin,  monarch  of  the  now 
united  kingdoms  of  the  Scots  and  Picts,  in  one  of  his 
numerous  raids  into  the  territory  of  the  Angles. 

A  few  years  later  (870)  the  other  great  monastery  of 
the  south,  Coldingham,  is  said  to  have  been  burned  by 
the  Danes.  A  second  Aebba  appears  as  abbess ;  and 
the  story  runs  that  she  and  the  sisters  of  the  convent 
on  the  approach  of  the  enemy  disfigured  themselves 

^  The  church  of  St.  Monans  is  picturesquely  situated  on  a  rock 
by  the  sea. 


200  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

frightfully  by  cutting  away  their  noses  and  lips  as  a 
protection  against  the  licentious  violence  of  the 
Danes.  The  abbess  and  nuns  perished  in  the  burning 
house. 

The  revival  of  the  bishopric  of  Candida  Casa  under 
the  Angles  has  been  already  noticed  (p.  191). 

Some  brief  account  may  here  be  given  of  the  fortunes 
of  religion  in  the  northern  islands.  There  is  no  doubt 
that  the  Gospel  was  preached  among  the  Picts  of  the 
islands  by  missionaries  of  the  Columban  brotherhood. 
But  in  the  northern  islands  the  heathen  Scandina- 
vians (generally  spoken  of  as  Danes  by  our  historians), 
who  had  at  first  only  paid  temporary  visits  for  the 
purposes  of  plunder,  came  eventually  to  make  settle- 
ments and  to  take  possession.  They  extended  their 
power  even  to  parts  of  the  mainland,  and  Caithness 
and  Sutherland  formed  part  of  the  earldom  of  Orkney 
under  the  suzerainty  of  the  King  of  Norway.  The 
efforts  of  the  Columban  Church  to  preserve  Christianity 
and  extend  it  among  the  heathen  conquerors  were 
inadequate  for  the  accomplishment  of  the  task.  But 
when  Christianity  obtained  possession  of  Scandinavia, 
at  the  end  of  the  tenth  and  beginning  of  the  eleventh 
century,  it  was  impossible  but  that  the  conversion  of 
the  colonies  and  outposts  would  follow.  Orkney, 
Shetland,  and  the  Faroe  Islands  were  compelled  by 
the  fierce  and  enthusiastic  neophyte,  King  Olave 
Tryggvesen,  to  accept  the  Christian  faith  at  the  point 
of  the  sword,  and  it  was  the  choice  between  baptism 
and  death  that  gave  us  the  first  Christian  Earl  of 
Orkney.     Even  the   king's  more    famous    namesake, 


'CULDEES.'  20I 

known  as  St.  Olave,  who  succeeded  to  the  throne  in 
1015,  pressed  the  claims  of  the  new  reHgion  by  the 
terrors  of  confiscation,  mutilation,  and  death. 

This  is  not  an  unsuitable  place  to  say  something  of 
the  ecclesiastics  commonly  known  as  "Culdees,"  to 
whom  an  entirely  fictitious  importance  has  been  given 
through  the  misunderstandings  of  later  historians,  and 
the  unintelligent  partisanship  of  religious  controver- 
sialists. 

The  notices  of  the  Culdees  in  Scottish  records  are 
few ;  but  the  investigation  of  the  evidence,  illustrated 
by  the  notices  of  ecclesiastics  bearing  a  similar  name 
in  Ireland,  leaves  in  the  first  place  no  doubt  that  they 
were  bodies  of  clerics  quite  distinct  from  the  Columban 
monks.  In  Scotland  they  were  to  be  found  almost 
exclusively  in  regions  where  the  Columban  influence 
was  weakest.  They  were  attached  in  several  cases  to 
important  churches,  and  were  responsible  for  and 
engaged  in  the  conduct  of  the  round  of  Divine  service. 
It  must  be  remembered  that  the  great  body  of  the 
Columban  monks  were  laymen,  and  were  necessarily 
much  occupied  with  tillage,  the  care  of  flocks  and 
herds,  and  the  varied  labour  connected  with  the 
maintenance  of  the  community. 

The  Keledei  (for  such  is  the  Scottish  form  of  the 
word),  it  would  seem,  were  not  large  communities. 
They  were  enabled  by  gifts  and  the  possession  of 
endowments  to  devote  themselves  exclusively  to 
private  or  public  devotions.  Writers  of  such  eminence 
as  Reeves  (whose  monograph.  On  the  Culdees  of  the 


202  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

British  Isles,  Dublin,  1864,  is  the  classical  authority  on 
the  subject)  and  Skene  {Celtic  Scotlatid^  vol.  ii.)  point 
to  resemblances  between  the  Culdees  and  the  "canons 
regular,"  first  established  by  Chrodegang,  archbishop 
of  Metz  (740 — 764).  But  the  differences  are  as 
striking  as  the  resemblances ;  for  while  Chrodegang's 
canons  lived  in  one  house  and  slept  in  one  dormitory, 
unless  especially  exempted,  the  Culdees  are,  at  least 
in  some  places,  represented  as  living,  what  was  styled 
in  the  ecclesiastical  language  of  the  day,  an  "  eremitical 
life."  That  is,  as  is  shown  by  the  evidence,  they  lived 
in  separate  houses  or  cells  within  the  same  enclosure. 
In  the  Chartulary  of  St.  Andrews  there  is  entered 
a  record  of  an  early  grant  made  to  the  Culdees  of 
Lochleven.  It  is,  I  think,  the  very  earliest  notice  of 
these  persons  to  be  found  in  Scottish  history.  There 
we  are  told  that  Brude,  son  of  Dergard,  king  of  the 
Picts  (whose  death  is  placed  in  the  year  706),  "gives 
the  isle  of  Lochleven  to  God  Almighty,  St.  Serf,  and 
the  Keledei  hermits  dwelling  there,  who  are  serving, 
or  shall  hereafter  serve,  God  in  that  island."  The 
other  places  in  Scotland  which  we  find  connected 
wTth  Keledei  are  St.  Andrews,  Dunkeld,  Dunblane, 
Brechin,  Rosmarky,  Dornoch,  Lismore  (all  of  them 
afterwards  episcopal  sees),  and  Abernethy,  Mony- 
rnusk,  Muthill,  Monifieth,  and,  at  a  late  period  (1164), 
lona,  where  the  Keledei  are  mentioned  as  distinct 
from  the  general  body  of  the  religious.  The  existence 
of  corporations  of  endowed  clergy  at  the  seven  places 
first  named  may,  perhaps  have  been  one  of  the  reasons 
why  these  places   were   eventually  selected   for   the 


LAXITY    OF    DISCIPLINE.  203 

seats  of  bishoprics.  The  provision,  when  not  irregu- 
larly alienated,  was  found  to  be  already  made,  in 
whole  or  in  part,  for  the  maintenance  of  the  round  of 
services  in  the  cathedral  churches  of  those  sees. 

In  the  disorganization  which  affected  the  whole 
Church  in  the  ninth,  tenth,  and  eleventh  centuries,  the 
seizure  and  appropriation  of  Church  property  by  lay- 
men was  only  too  common,  and  its  tenure  may  have 
been  facilitated  by  some  nominal  assumption  by  them 
of  the  titles  belonging  to  the  heads  and  other  officers 
of  the  religious  corporations.  Discipline  was  griev- 
ously relaxed,  and  there  may  have  been  some  found- 
ation in  fact  for  the  statement  made  in  the  sixteenth 
century  by  Alexander  Mylne  ( VitcB  Episcoporwn 
Dtmkeldensum^  p.  4),  so  far  as  it  asserts  that  the 
Keledei  of  St.  Andrews  at  one  time  had  wives.  Similar 
irregularities  (some  of  them  indeed  of  a  highly  im- 
moral kind)  were  to  be  found  among  the  canon 
clerics,  to  whose  organization  the  corporations  of 
Culdees  were  most  nearly  akin  in  England  and  the 
Continent.  The  canons  of  Winchester  in  the  tenth 
century  had  wives  whom  they  treated  with  gross 
indecency ,1  and  Archbishop  Aelfric  of  Canterbury,  in 
his  Life  of  Aethelwoid,  Bishop  of  Winches ter^  records 
even  a  worse  state  of  things,  for  he  describes  the 
clergy  of  the  cathedral  as  not  only  possessing  wives, 
but  as  repudiating  them  and  taking  others.  And  gener- 
ally in  Saxon  England  we  may  accept  the  statement 
of  Dr.  Lingard  {A7iglo-Saxon  Churchy  vol.  ii.,  p.  254), 
that  "  married  priests  became  sufficiently  numerous  to 
^  See  Thorpe's  Diplomata  Anglic.  /Evi  Sa^'oii.  p.  260. 


204  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

bid  defiance  to  the  laws  both  of  the  Church  and 
the  State."  On  the  continent  of  Europe  things  were 
no  better.  Helyot,  with  special  reference  to  the 
eleventh  century,  declares  that  discipline  among  the 
canons  was  relaxed  to  such  a  point  that  they  were 
simply  "overwhelmed  in  the  sink  of  universal  incon- 
tinence." ^  There  is  no  reason  whatever  for  supposing 
that  the  possessing  wives  on  the  part  of  the  Scottish 
Culdees,  if  such  be  the  case,  was  anything  different 
from  such  connections  in  England  and  abroad.  It 
was  not,  as  Mylne  would  suggest,  an  approved  survival 
of  the  Eastern  discipline  which  permitted  marriage  to 
the  secular  clergy,  but  simply  an  outcome  of  the 
general  decay  of  ecclesiastical  discipHne  in  the  West.^ 
Even  after  the  thorough  investigation  made  by 
Reeves,  the  question  of  the  origin  of  the  Culdees 
remains  obscure.  The  researches  of  this  scholar 
point  to  the  fact,  which  is  abundantly  evident  in  the 
Irish  Church  and  the  Columban  Church  of  Scotland, 
that  the  busy  life  of  the  monastic  communities  came 
by  some  to  be  regarded  as  a  state  less  perfect  than  the 
life  of  retired  devotion  which  might  be  found  in  a 
"  desert,"  a  name  sometimes,  as  we  have  seen,  applied 
to  a  cell  removed  only  a  short  way  from  the  general 
buildings  of  the  monastery.  At  first,  retirement  to 
such  place  was  only  for  a  time,  but  afterwards  there 
were  those  who  sought  a  life-long  seclusion  in  these 
or  in  remoter  solitudes.     Absolute  solitude  seems  to 

^  Histoire  dcs  Ordres  Monast.  vol,  i.,  col.  774,  edit.  Migne. 
'^  We  have  no  contemporary  evidence,  however,  for  the  marriage 
of  the  Scottish  Culdees. 


ORIGIN    or    THE    KELF_BFJ..  205 

have  proved,  as  time  went  c^too  trying  for  human 
nature,  and,  by  and  by,  groups'  of  cells  were  formed, 
and  "anchorites,"  "hermits,"  and  "  Cele  De"  (in 
Scotland  "  Keledei ")  were  names  bec-towed  upon 
their  occupants. 

The  najne^  as  well  as  the  office  and  position,  of  the 
Keledei,  has  been  much  discussed.  The  notion  of 
the  historians  of  a  later  time  connecting  the  word 
with  the  Latin  Cultores  Dei  has  given  rise  to  the 
popular  form  "  Culdees."  But  this  has  found  less 
general  acceptance  among  recent  historians.  Reeves 
and  Skene  concur  in  deriving  the  word  from  the 
Irish  Cele  De,  which  the  former  would  render  as 
"  Servants  of  God,"  while  the  latter  would  take  Cele 
in  its  sense  of  "companion"  or  "friend."  On  behalf 
of  Skene's  view,  it  may  be  remarked  that  "  servant 
of  God  "  {servus  Dei)  was  a  common  designation  of 
any  one  who  had  adopted  the  monastic  life ;  while  in 
the  case  before  us  a  very  distinct  and  special  class  of 
devotees  is  intended.  Again,  Colgan,  whom  Reeves 
describes  as  "a  master  of  the  Irish  language," 
declares  that  the  word  should  be  rendered  in  Latin 
Deicola  or  Amadeus. 

Though  with  great  diffidence,  after  the  declarations 
of  two  such  eminent  authorities,  I  am  disposed  to 
think  that  more  may  be  said  than  is  now  generally 
supposed  for  the  old  view  that  Culdee  is  a  corruption 
of  CvJtor  Dei,  or  connected  with  colo.  Colidei  is 
the  form  in  which  the  word  appears  at  York,  and 
Dr.  Lingard  {Anglo-Saxon  Church,  vol.  ii.,  p.  294) 
has  pointed  out  that  the  prebendaries  of  Canterbury 


206     ■         TH       CELTir    CHURCTT    IN    SCOTLAND. 

are  in  an  old  charter  styled  Cultores  Clerici.  I 
would  venture  to  suggest  that  in  Saxon  England 
Colidei  was  foimed  from  cultor  Dei^  but  that  a 
word  not  unlike  in  sound  in  the  Celtic  tongue 
(though  philologically  distinct  and  originally  of  a 
somewhat  different  sense)  was  used  to  design.ite 
the  same  class  of  persons. 

Whatever  obscurities  still  surround  both  the  name 
and  the  office  of  the  Culdees,  of  one  thing  we  may  be 
certain — there  is  not  the  smallest  shred  of  evidence 
for  the  notion  that  the  Culdees  differed  from  the  rest 
of  Christendom  at  the  period  either  in  regard  to  faith 
or  in  their  views  of  Church  government.^  They  pro- 
bably originated  in  an  attempt  to  aim  at  the  higher 
perfections  of  an  ascetic  life.  They  next  were  united 
in  small  corporations,  resembling  Canons  Regular  else- 
where, and  were  occupied  mainly  in  maintaining  the 
round  of  Divine  service,  together  with  certain  duties 
connected,    in    some    places,    with    the    exercise   of 


1  The  notion  is  not  yet  wholly  exploded,  but  it  is  no  longer 
entertained  by  the  better  informed  among  Presbyterian  writers. 
Thus,  in  the  first  volume  of  a  recent  history,  entitled  The  Church 
of  Scotland,  Past  and  Present,  edited  by  Dr.  R.  H.  Story, 
Professor  of  Ecclesiastical  History  in  the  University  of  Glasgow, 
Dr.  James  Campbell  writes  (p.  216),  "  Some  have  maintained 
that  they  [the  Culdees]  had  an  Eastern  origin,  and  were  our 
earliest  evangelists.  It  has  been  more  generally  believed  that 
Columba  was  their  founder  ;  that  their  form  of  Church  govern- 
ment was  characterized  by  the  exclusion  of  bishops  and 
adherence  to  primitive  Presbyterian  parity ;  that  they  rejected 
transubstantiation  and  other  errors  of  later  ages  ;  and  preserved 
their  purity  of  doctrine  and  worship  till  swept  away  by  the 
advancing  tide  of  Romanism.  In  the  light  of  recent  inquiries 
these  opinions  are  seen  to  be  erroneous." 


DECAY    OF    CHURCH    DISCIPLINE.  207 

hospitality  to  strangers.  In  the  widespread  decay  of 
Church  discipline  in  the  ninth,  tenth,  and  eleventh 
centuries,  the  Culdees  fell  away,  and  at  the  time  of 
the  great  revival  of  Church  life  under  St.  Margaret, 
their  name  is  associated  not  with  rigour  but  with 
laxity. 


208 


CHAPTER   XIII. 

THE    FAITH    AND    RITUAL    OF     THE   CELTIC    CHURCH — 
THE    TONSURE    AND    EASTER    COMPUTATION. 

When  we  come  to  deal  with  the  rehgious  beliefs 

and  practices  of  the  Celtic  Church  in  Scotland,  we 

are  met  at  the  outset  by  the  fact  that  extremely  few 

literary  remains  of  the  Celtic  period  have  in  the  long 

lapse    of  years   come   down   to   us   in    safety.     The 

writings  of  Adamnan,  abbat  of   lona  (679-704),  are 

almost   the  only  documents  that  supply  information 

on  these  subjects  from  what  we  may  perhaps  venture 

to  call  a  Scottish  source  ;   while  the   Book  of  Deer 

(which  will  be  described   hereafter  i)  is   the  solitary 

liturgical  relic  of  the  Celtic  Church  in  Scotland.     But 

happily  it  is  made  plain  on  investigation  that  we  are 

entitled   to   rely  with   confidence   on   documents   of 

distinctively  Irish   origin   as  expressing  a   faith   and 

describing  ritual  and  disciplinary  observances  which 

are    substantially — indeed,    perhaps    we    might    say 

absolutely — identical   with   what   was   professed   and 

what  was  practised  in  the  Celtic  churches  of  northern 

1  See  p.  248. 


RITUAL    OP"     IHE    CELTIC    CHURCH.  209 

Britain.  It  is  in  respect  to  the  religious  beliefs  and 
usages  of  the  people  as  with  Celtic  art  and  Celtic 
architecture.  Scotland  cannot  be  studied  apart  from 
Ireland.  Just  as  the  copious  riches  of  Irish  archae- 
ology constantly  help  us  to  supply  with  confidence 
what  is  insufficiently  expressed,  or  only  hinted  at 
obscurely  in  the  comparatively  scanty  relics  of  Celtic 
civilization  in  Scotland,  so  the  more  abundant  literary 
remains  of  Irish  Christianity  help  us  to  understand 
what  is  vague  or  uncertain  in  the  few  written  docu- 
ments that  can  claim  a  Scottish  birthplace.  The 
literary  documents  of  the  Celtic  Church  in  Ireland 
may  be  as  reasonably  appealed  to  for  the  illustration 
of  the  faith  and  religious  ceremonial  of  the  Celtic 
Church  in  Scotland,  as  the  writings  of  English 
Churchmen  might  in  an  after  age  be  cited  to  illustrate 
the  faith  and  usages  of  any  of  the  daughter  churches 
of  the  colonies.  Indeed,  none  of  our  colonial 
churches,  even  with  the  facilities  of  communication 
afforded  by  modern  civilization,  is  able  to  maintain 
such  constant  and  such  close  intercourse  with  home 
as  did  the  Church  of  the  west  coast  of  Scotland  with 
the  neighbouring  shores  of  Ireland. 

On  the  great  fundamental  doctrines  of  the  Christian 
creed  there  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  any  of  the 
Celtic  churches  varied  from  the  faith  of  the  Church 
catholic.  We  learn  indeed  on  respectable  authority ,i 
that  in  the  year  429  the  errors  on  the  subject  of 
Original  Sin,  Free  Will,  Grace,  and  Predestination, 
which  are  designated  by  the  name  "  Pelagianism,"  were 

^  Prosper  of  Aquitaine. 

O 


2IO  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

introduced,  if  they  had  not  already  made  way,  among 
the  British  Christians.  But  the  heresy  was  not  allowed 
to  spread  itself  unchecked.  The  British  ecclesiastics 
sought  aid  from  the  neighbouring  Church  of  Gaul, 
and  St.  Loup,  bishop  of  Troyes,  with  St.  German, 
bishop  of  Auxerre — the  latter,  perhaps,  as  deputed  by 
the  bishop  of  Rome,  were  sent  to  controvert  the 
heretical  teachers.  Yet,  though  in  a  remarkable  public 
discussion  the  assertors  of  the  catholic  doctrine 
obtained,  amid  general  applause,  a  triumphant  victory, 
the  erroneous  views  seem  to  have  spread.  In  447 
St.  German  is  again  besought  by  orthodox  Britons 
to  come  to  their  aid,  and  on  this  occasion  he  is  said 
not  only  to  have  vanquished  his  Pelagian  antagonists 
in  argument,  but  to  have  caused  them  to  be  banished 
from  Britain.  Whether  the  trouble  caused  by 
Pelagianism  extended  to  the  British  Church  in  the 
north,  it  is  impossible  to  say;  but  the  hold  of  this 
error  in  any  part  of  Britain  was  brief,  and  on  its 
extinction  no  further  complaints  are  made  as  to 
doctrinal  errors  of  a  grave  kind  existing  in  any  of  the 
Celtic  churches  of  the  islands. 

No  documents  of  the  ancient  Celtic  Church  surpass 
in  interest  the  writings  of  St.  Patrick,  the  apostle  of 
Ireland.  At  the  present  day  there  is  probably  no 
competent  scholar  who  doubts  the  genuineness  of  the 
Confessio7i  and  the  Epistle  to  the  Subjects  of  Coroticus. 
Both  the  external  and  internal  evidence  in  favour  of 
the  prevailing  belief  is  overwhelming. ^ 

^  Those  who  desire  to  see  the  subject  ably 'discussed  should 
consult   Todd's  St.  Patrick  and  Stokes'  Ireland  and  the  Celtic 


ST.  Patrick's  'confession.'  211 

For  myself  I  can  say  that  no  literary  monuments 
of  antiquity  have  ever  impressed  me  with  a  more 
satisfying  sense  of  their  genuineness.  Dealing  with  a 
country  and  period,  the  study  of  which  has  been 
rendered  highly  embarrassing  by  the  imaginative 
combinations,  inventions,  cross-lights,  and  fanciful 
colouring  of  subsequent  hagiologists  and  historians,  we 
eagerly  seize  upon  these  authentic  relics.  The  view 
of  religion  and  of  society  which  they  present  may,  it 
is  true,  be  rather  narrowly  restricted,  still  we  have  the 
happiness  of  being  assured  of  the  truth  and  reality 
of  what  little  is  told  us. 

In  the  early  part  of  the  CoJifession,  Patrick  makes  a 
profession  of  his  faith  in  respect  to  the  doctrine  of 
the  Holy  Trinity,  which,  though  not  in  express  terms 
''  homoousian,"  leaves  us  no  reason  to  question  that 
as  regards  the  central  doctrines  of  the  Christian  Creed, 
the  faith  received  by  the  Irish  Scots  was  that  of  the 
Catholics  as  distinguished  from  the  Arians.  And 
indeed,  at  the  date  when  the  Confession  was  written — 
that  is,  in  St.  Patrick's  old  age — and  for  those  for 
whom  he  wrote,  there  was  probably  no  need  to  be 
more  precise.  Patrick,  acknowledging  God's  wonder- 
ful goodness  towards  him,  signifies  that  no  other 
recompense  {retributio)  can  be  made  to  God  than  to 


Church,  pp.  25  sq.;  also  the  article  "Patrick  "  by  the  same  writer 
in  Smith  and  Wace's  Dictionary  of  Christian  Biography,  where 
the  more  curious  student  will  find  abundant  references  to  earlier 
writings  on  the  subject.  Dr.  Skene,  referring  to  the  Confession 
and  the  Epistle  to  Coroticus,  writes:  "These  documents  we 
accept  as  undoubtedly  genuine  "  {Celtic  Scotland,  vol.  ii.,  p.  20). 
See  ante  p.  33. 


212  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

exalt  Him  and  declare  Him  before  every  nation 
under  heaven,  and  so  he  proceeds  to  state  "  that 
there  is  none  other  God,  nor  ever  was,  nor  shall  be 
hereafter,  save  only  the  Lord,  the  Father  unbegotten, 
without  beginning,  from  whom  is  all  beginning, 
upholding  all  things  : 

"  And  His  Son  Jesus  Christ,  whom  we  acknow- 
ledge to  have  been  always  spiritually  with  the 
Father,  before  the  beginning  of  the  world ;  begotten 
in  an  ineffable  manner  before  all  beginning.  And 
by  Him  were  made  things  visible  and  invisible.  And 
being  made  man,  and  having  overcome  death,  He 
was  received  into  heaven  unto  the  Father.  And  He 
[the  Father]  hath  given  to  Him  all  power,  above 
every  name,  of  things  in  heaven,  and  things  in  earth, 
and  things  under  the  earth,  that  every  tongue  should 
confess  that  Jesus  Christ  is  Lord  and  God.  Whom 
we  believe,  and  we  look  for  His  coming,  who  is  ere 
long  to  be  Judge  of  quick  and  dead,  w^ho  will  render 
to  every  man  according  to  his  works. 

"  Who  hath  shed  forth  in  us  abundantly  the  gift  of 
the  Holy  Ghost,  the  pledge  of  immortality,  who  maketh 
the  faithful  and  obedient  to  become  the  sons  of  God 
the  Father,  and  joint-heirs  with  Christ,  whom  we  con- 
fess and  worship  one  God  in  the  Trinity  of  the  most 
holy  Name." 

There  is  now  preserved  in  the  Ambrosian  Library 
of  Milan  an  Irish  MS.,  written  some  two  hundred 
years  after  the  death  of  St.  Patrick.  It  formerly  be- 
longed to  the  great  monastery  of  Bangor,  in  the  county 
Down.     It  is  known  as  the  AntipJwiiary  of  Bangor, 


'antiphonary  of  p.angor.'  213 

and  contains,  beside  hymns  and  prayers,  etc.,  a  Creed 
which,  though  declaring  the  same  great  truths,  uses 
language  differing  in  a  remarkable  way  from  the 
Niceno-Constantinopolitan  symbol,  and,  indeed,  I  may 
add,  from  all  other  known  forms  of  the  Creed.  ^  It 
deserves  a  place  here,  and  runs  as  follows  : — 

"  I  believe  in  God  the  Father,  Almighty,  Invisible, 
Maker  of  all  created  things  visible  and  invisible. 

"  I  believe  also  in  Jesus  Christ,  His  only  Son,  our 
Lord,  God  Almighty,  conceived  of  the  Holy  Ghost, 
born  of  the  Virgin  Mary ;  He  suffered  under  Pontius 
Pilate  ;  Who,  having  been  crucified  and  buried, 
descended  into  hell ;  on  the  third  day  He  rose  again 
from  the  dead,  ascended  into  heaven,  and  sat  on  the 
right  hand  of  God  the  Father  Almighty ;  from  thence 
He  shall  come  to  judge  the  quick  and  the  dead. 

"  I  believe  also  in  the  Holy  Ghost,  God  Almighty, 
having  one  substance  {imam  haheiitem  substantiam) 
with  the  Father  and  the  Son.  [I  believe]  that  there 
is  a  holy  Catholic  Church,  remission  of  sins,  com- 
munion of  saints,  resurrection  of  the  flesh.  I  believe 
[that  there  is]  life  after  death,  and  eternal  life  in  the 
glory  of  Christ.  I  believe  all  these  things  in  God.^ 
Amen." 

There  is  something  very  striking  in  the  emphatic 
assertions  with  the  recurrent  phrases,  "  I  believe  in 
Jesus  Christ  .  .  .   God  Al f nighty. '"     "I  believe  in  the 

^  The  text  of  this  MS.  has  been  recently  (1893)  pioduced  in 
photographic  fac-simile,  and  edited  by  the  Rev.  F.  E.  Warren 
for  tlie  Henry  BradsJiaio  Society. 

-  "  Hxc  omnia  credo  in  Deum."  The  sense  of  this  last 
clause  is  not  free  from  ambiguity. 


2  14  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

Holy  Ghost,  God  Almii^htyy  While  the  phrase  ''of 
one  substance,"  ordinarily  applied  'to  the  Second  Per- 
son of  the  Blessed  Trinity,  is  here  applied  to  the 
Third  Person,  and  in  the  form  "  having  one  sub- 
stance with  the  Father  and  the  Son."  There  is  no 
faltering  in  this  Creed's  assertion  of  catholic  theology. 
The  declaration,  too,  that  God  is  Himself  "  invisible," 
though  the  Creator  of  all  things  visible  and  invisible, 
may  have  been  found  desirable  in  a  country  where,  as 
it  would  seem,  the  worship  of  the  powers  of  nature 
{e.  g.  of  the  sun)  ^  at  one  time  had  place. 

The  two  unquestionably  genuine  writings  of  St. 
Patrick  are  documents  of  no  great  length;  and  the 
special  objects  with  which  each  was  written  have 
nothing  to  do  with  dogmatic  controversy.  Accordingly, 
it  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  if  from  them  we  are  able 
to  derive  but  little  information  as  to  many  topics  on 
which  we  would  now  gladly  have  some  guidance. 
But  the  fact  of  their  undoubted  genuineness  makes  us 
eagerly  prize  every  smallest  gleam  of  light  they  throw 
on  a  period  so  deeply  enveloped  in  gloom.  On  the 
doctrine  of  the  Trinity  in  Unity,  we  have  seen  there  is 
a  full  and  express  testimony,  and  we  have  no  reason 
to  question  that,  on  the  other  fundamental  doctrines  of 
the  Faith,  St.  Patrick  did  not  differ  from  the  general 
belief  of  his  time. 

The  Confession  was  written  when  the  author  was  well 
advanced  in  years  (cap.  i.,  sec.  3),  and  its  main  object 

^  See  Confession,  cap.  v. ,  sec,  25,  "  That  sun  which  we  behold, 
at  God's  command  rises  daily  for  us, — but  it  siiall  never  reign, 
nor  shall  its  splendour  continue  ;  but  all  even  that  worship  it, 
miscral)le  beings,  shall  wretchedly  come  to  punishment." 


GENUINE    WRITINGS    OF    ST.    PATRICK.  215 

seems  to  have  been  to  vindicate  himself  for  having  un- 
dertaken the  missionary  episcopate  of  Ireland.  It  is  the 
utterance  of  an  humble,  earnest  Christian,  whose  heart 
was  aflame  with  the  love  of  souls.  The  writer  is  pain- 
fully alive  to  his  deficiencies  in  literary  culture,  and 
the  barbarous  and  ungrammatical  Latin  of  his  writings 
justifies  his  self-abasement  in  this  respect.  The 
Epistle  to  the  C/iristiafi  Subjects  of  Coroticus  consists 
of  an  indignant  protest  against  the  greed  and  cruelty 
of  that  prince,!  who  harried  the  Irish  coast,  slaughtered 
many,  and  carried  off  into  slavery  great  numbers  of 
Christian  men  and  women. 

The  personal  portrait,  which  the  unconscious  touches 
of  the  writer  bring  out  stroke  by  stroke  before  our  eyes, 
constitutes  the  main  charm  of  both  writings.  But 
their  extreme  preciousness  as  genuine  productions  of 
their  age  (being,  as  Sir  Samuel  Ferguson  {Patrician 
Dociimeiits)^  has  pointed  out,  "  the  oldest  documents  in 
British  history")  has  caused  them  to  be  subjected  to 
a  minute  and  even  microscopic  scrutiny.  For  our 
present  purpose  there  is  not  much  to  be  gathered ; 
but  we  learn  the  following  particulars  :— (i)  We  find 
Patrick  claiming  to  be  constituted  "  bishop  in 
Ireland"  {Corot.^  cap.  i.,  sec.  2).  (2)  He  personally 
ordains  clergy,  as  we  learn  in  more  passages  than 
one,  but  nowhere  more  clearly  than  when,  asserting 
that  all  he  had  done  for  Ireland  he  had  done  with- 
out reward,  he  declares,  "  When  the  Lord  ordained 
everywhere  clergy  through  my  humble  ministry,  I 
dispensed  the  rite  gratuitously"  {Co?ifess.  cap.  v.,  sec, 
1  See  p.  34. 


21 6  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

22).  It  would  seem  from  other  authorities  that  the 
practice  of  the  Presbyters  present  laying  on  hands 
together  with  the  bishop  at  the  ordination  of  a  Pres- 
byter, was  not  perhaps  in  early  times  the  practice  of 
the  Celtic  Church.^  (3)  The  rite  of  Confirmation  was 
administered  by  St.  Patrick.  This,  too,  he  would  have 
his  readers  understand,  was  done  gratuitously  {Ibid.). 
(4)  Both  the  Confession  and  Epistle  to  Co7'oticus  abound 
in  quotations  from  the  Scriptures  of  the  Old  and  New 
Testaments,  and,  apart  from  direct  quotations,  the 
texture  of  his  diction  is  in  a  large  measure  woven  out 
of  biblical  language ;  but,  like  most  contemporary 
writers,  he  quotes  somewhat  loosely.  (5)  Like  many 
contemporary  writers,  he  cites,  as  divinely-inspired 
Scripture,  passages  from  the  Apocrypha  or  deutero- 
canonical  books.  (6)  He  quotes  from  an  earlier  Latin 
version  or  versions,  not  from  the  revised  version  of  St. 
Jerome.  (7)  He  testifies  to  the  attraction  and  rapid 
spread  of  the  monastic  system.  Both  men  and  women 
(some  of  the  latter  being  of  high  rank)  eagerly  sought 
to  devote  themselves,  under  conventual  rule,  to  the 
service  of  God  (C^';//^^'^*.,  cap.  iv.,  sec.  18,  etc.).  Here 
are  the  beginnings  in  Ireland  (Ninian  had  already  intro- 
duced the  system  into  northern  Britain)  of  what  was, 
during  the  whole  of  the  Celtic  period  of  our  Church's 
history,  its  dominating  characteristic.  The  monastery 
was  everywhere  the  home  and  seminary  of  Christian 
learning,  the  centre  of  Christian  work,  and  every- 
where, as  it  were,  the  military  base  of  operations 
against  the  powers  of  heathendom.  There  is  not  one 
^  See  Adaninan,  Vita  Colwnb.^  lib.  i.,  c.  xxix.    But  see  p.  255. 


USAGES    OF    THE    SCOTTISH    CHURCH.  21 7 

name  of  eminence  in  the  history  of  Celtic  Christianity 
that  is  not  closely  connected  with  the  monastic  life. 
(8)  Though  baptism  is  frequently  referred  to  in  the 
writings  of  St.  Patrick,  it  is  curious  that  there  is  no 
direct  reference  to  the  Eucharist.  We  find,  how- 
ever, the  statement  jnade  {Confess.^  cap.  v.,  sec.  21), 
that  St.  Patrick  was  careful,  despite  the  offence  he 
gave,  to  return  to  their  owners  certain  personal  orna- 
ments cast  upon  "  the  altar "  by  ''  religious  women 
and  virgins  of  Christ." 

It  is  to  the  more  abundant  writings  of  Adamnan 
that  we  turn  for  the  fullest  information  as  to  the  eccle- 
siastical usages  of  the  ancient  Scottish  Church.  These 
writings,  however,  it  must  be  remembered,  picture  to 
us  the  state  of  things  at  a  period  removed  by  a 
hundred  years  from  that  of  St.  Patrick.  Dr.  Reeves, 
late  bishop  of  Down  and  Connor,  in  his  edition  of 
Adamnan's  Life  of  St.  Colutnba,  has,  by  his  splendid 
wealth  of  learned  illustration,  made  comparatively  easy 
the  task  of  subsequent  inquirers ;  and  in  what  follows 
I  have,  like  every  recent  historian,  made  free  use  of 
his  labours.  1 

It  is  well  first  to  reiterate  that,  speaking  generally, 
there  is  no  evidence  of  the  Celtic  Church  entertaining 
in  a  definite  manner  any  doctrine  differing  from  the 
prevailing  faith  of  the  rest  of  Western  Christendom  at 
the  time.  More  especial  prominence  may  be  found 
given  to  certain  notions,  but  substantially  the  faith  of 

^  I  would  also  express  my  indebtedness  to  the  very  valuable 
work  of  the  Rev.  F.  E.  Wairen,  entitled  T/ie  Liturgy  and 
Ritual  of  the  Celtic  Church,  Oxford,  1 88 1. 


2l8  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

Christendom  was  one.  There  would  be  no  necessity 
to  emphasize  what  might  be  naturally  expected,  were 
it  not  that  the  early  Scottish  and  Irish  Church  has 
been  sometimes  represented  as  possessing  a  doctrinally 
purer  and  more  primitive  Christianity  than  was  to  be 
found  at  the  time  elsewhere,  '^ke,  for  example,  the 
Eucharist.  Nowhere  in  Christendom  in  the  sixth 
century  do  we  find  the  formulated  doctrine  that  after- 
wards came  to  be  known  as  Transubstantiation.  But 
in  the  Church  of  St.  Columba  the  opinion  and  senti- 
ment in  regard  to  the  Eucharist,  so  far  as  we  can 
gather  them,  were  substantially  the  same  as  may  be 
found  elsewhere  at  the  same  period.  The  notices  in 
Adamnan  are  doubtless  historical,  not  dogmatic,  but 
the  language  used  by  him  is  just  what  might  be  ex- 
pected from  contemporary  writers  on  the  Continent. 
Thus  the  priest  "  stood  before  the  altar^'  to  "  conse- 
crate the  sacred  ohlatmi''  (lib.  iii.,  c.  18).  Elsewhere 
the  ''sacred  mysteries^''  "the  mysteries  of  the  sacred  obla- 
tion^' "  the  sacred  mysteties  of  the  Eucharist,"  are  terms 
employed.  And  the  priest  who  consecrates  is  said 
CJiristi  corpus  conficere  (lib.  i.,  c.  35).  These  expres- 
sions were  the  common  language  of  Western  Christen- 
dom at  the  time  of  Adamnan,  and  indeed  at  an  earlier 
time  than  his.  It  is  worth  observing,  however,  that 
so  far  as  the  notices  in  Adamnan  throw  light  on  the 
subject,  we  have  no  reason  to  suppose  that  there  were, 
ordinarily,  any  celebrations  of  the  Eucharist  except  on 
the  Lord's  Day  and  festivals.  A  daily  celebration  had 
been  established  in  many  parts  of  Christendom  long 
before   this  date ;    and    it   is  remarkable   that    in    a 


IMPORTANCE    OF    BAPTISM.  2T9 

monastery  where  there  were  several  priests  a  daily 
mass  does  not  appear  to  have  been  said. 

As  might  be  expected  from  the  chc^racter  of  the 
narrative  of  the  missionary  labours  of  the  community, 
the  notices  we  have  of  Baptism  are  in  connection 
with  converts  from  heathenism.  The  importance 
attached  to  the  administration  of  the  rite  may  be 
gathered  from  the  following  narrative  (which  is 
interesting  also  in  other  respects),  recorded  in  the 
Life  (lib.  iii.,  c.  15).  "At  another  time,  when  the  holy 
man  was  journeying  beyond  the  dorsum  of  Britain, 
near  the  lake  of  the  river  Nisa  (Loch  Ness),  he  was 
suddenly  inspired  by  the  Holy  Spirit,  and  said  to  the 
brethren  who  accompanied  him,  '  Let  us  hasten  to 
meet  the  holy  angels  who  have  come  from  the  highest 
regions  of  heaven  to  bear  away  the  soul  of  a  heathen, 
and  are  waiting  there  for  our  coming  that  we  may 
baptize  him  before  he  dies,  who  has  preserved  his 
natural  virtue  {natiirale  boniim)  through  a  long  life 
even  to  extreme  old  age.'  And,  when  he  had  said 
this,  the  aged  saint  hurried  on  in  front  of  his  com- 
panions as  fast  as  he  could  till  he  came  to  the 
district  called  Airchart-dan  [?  Glen  Urquhart],  where 
he  found  an  old  man,  Emchat,  who,  hearing  the  word 
of  God  preached  by  the  saint,  believed,  and  was 
baptized,  and  immediately  in  joy  and  confidence 
passed  to  the  Lord,  with  the  angels  who  had  come  to 
meet  him.  His  son,  Virolec,  also  believed,  and  was 
baptized  with  his  whole  house."  The  recognition  by 
Columba  of  the  preservation  of  his  "  natural  goodness  " 
by  the  old  heathen  man  is  a  very  interesting  feature. 


2  20  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

With  this  passage  may  be  compared  a  very  remark- 
able utterance  to  be  found  in  the  Se?ic/ius  Mor 
("Great  Antiquity"),  a  very  remarkable  compilation 
professing  to  embody  St.  Patrick's  reform  and  ratifi- 
cation of  the  Brehon  Laws:  "Now  the  Judgments  of 
true  nature  luhich  the  Holy  Ghost  had  spoken  through 
the  mouths  of  the  Brehons  and  just  poets  of  the  men 
of  Erin,  from  the  first  occupation  of  this  island  down 
to  the  reception  of  the  faith,  were  all  exhibited  by 
Dubhthach  (Chief  Bard  of  Ireland)  to  Patrick.  What- 
ever did  not  clash  with  the  Word  of  God,  in  the 
written  Law,  and  in  the  New  Testament,  and  with 
the  consciences  of  the  believers,  was  confirmed  in  the 
laws  of  the  Brehons  by  Patrick."  ^  There  is  in  this 
sometliing  that  reminds  one  of  the  large  views  and 
spiritual  insight  of  Justin  Martyr  and  Clement  of 
Alexandria,  with  respect  to  God's  revelation  of  His 
will  to  the  pagan  i)hilosophers. 

Let  us  now  consider  some  of  the  more  peculiar,  or, 
at  least,  more  markedly  emphasized,  features  in  the 
current  religious  belief  of  the  days  of  St.  Columba. 

Prominence  given  to  the  agency  of  Demons  and  good 
Angeis. — The  extraordinary  prominence  given  to  the 
agency  of  good  and  evil  angels  in  the  Christian 
thousrht  of  the  time  cannot  fail  to  strike  the  modern 
reader  of  Adamnan.  And  the  same  feature  appears 
also  in  the  lives  of  others  of  the  Celtic  saints.  We 
are  not  here  concerned  with  the  question  of  the 
reasonableness  of  such  prominence ;  but  we  observe, 
as  an  interesting  phenomenon,  that  particular  aspects 

^  Ilealy's  Insula  Sanrtoruni  ct  Doctoriim,  p.  53. 


AGENCY    OF    DEMONS.  221 

of  truth  and  particular  phases  of  belief  assume  at 
some  periods  a  magnitude  and  a  proportion  that  at 
other  periods  would,  to  say  the  least,  seem  to  have 
an  air  of  exaggeration,  if  not  of  caricature.  For 
Adamnan  the  evil  spirits  are  not  only  tempters  offering 
their  seductions  to  the  human  heart,  but  they  possess 
power  of  a  physical  kind  over  other  creatures  of  God. 
Thus  demons,  by  their  art,  can  raise  tempests  and 
agitate  the  sea.  Indeed,  legions  of  demons  are  de- 
scribed in  one  place  as  raising  a  violent  tempest  and 
causing  a  great  darkness,  while  it  was  yet  day  (lib.  ii., 
c.  35).  They  can  take  possession  of  a  well,  and  render 
its  water  noxious  (lib.  ii.,  c.  lo).  They  can  make 
blood  have  all  the  appearance  of  milk  ;  and  so,  on  one 
occasion,  they  enabled  a  sorcerer,  till  detected  by  the 
saint,  to  pass  himself  off  as  one  who  would  perform  the 
miracle  of  drawing  milk  from  a  bull  (lib.  ii.,  c.  i6). 
They  at  times  are  visible  to  the  bodily  eyes  (lib.  i., 
c.  i).  They  are  "very  black  "  in  colour  (lib.  ii.,  c.  9). 
They  on  one  occasion  made  an  assault  in  great 
numbers  upon  the  saint  and  the  monastery  with  "iron 
spits.''  The  saint  fought  against  the  countless  hordes 
single-handed  for  the  greater  part  of  the  day,  and 
finally,  with  the  help  of  the  good  angels,  expelled  them 
from  the  island.  But  perhaps  the  most  entertaining 
and  instructive  of  these  stories  is  found  in  the  chapter 
(lib.  ii.,  c.  15)  entitled,  "Concerning  the  expulsion  of 
a  devil  who  was  lying  hidden  in  a  milk-pail " ;  and 
to  taste  the  genuine  flavour  of  the  story,  we  must  hear 
it  as  it  is  told  us  by  Adamnan.  "At  another  time,  a 
certain   youth,    Columbanus   by   name,  grandson   of 


222  THE    CP:i;iTC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

Briun,  coming  suddenly,  stopped  at  the  door  of  the 
little  hut  in  which  the  blessed  man  was  engaged  in 
writing.  This  same  youth,  returning  from  the  milking 
of  the  cows  and  carrying  on  his  back  a  vessel  full 
of  new  milk,  asked  the  saint  to  bless  his  load,  as  he 
was  wont.  Then  the  saint,  being  at  some  distance 
away,  raised  his  hand  and  made  the  saving  sign  (/.  e. 
of  the  Cross)  in  the  air,  which  thereupon  was  moved 
by  a  violent  concussion,  the  bar  which  fastened  the 
lid  was  thrust  back  out  of  the  two  holes  in  the 
sides  of  the  pail  and  shot  away  to  a  distance,  the 
lid  fell  to  the  ground,  and  the  greater  part  of  the  milk 
was  spilled.  The  young  lad  lays  down  the  pail,  with 
the  little  milk  that  remained,  on  the  ground,  and  falls 
as  a  suppliant  on  his  knees.  But  the  saint,  addressing 
him,  said,  '  Rise  up,  Columbanus ;  thou  hast  acted 
negligently  in  thy  work  to-day,  for  thou  didst  not  put 
to  flight  the  devil  that  was  lurking  in  the  bottom  of 
the  empty  pail  before  the  milk  was  poured  in,  by  mark- 
ing it  with  the  sign  of  the  Cross  of  our  Lord.  And 
now,  as  thou  seest,  being  unable  to  endure  the  virtue 
of  that  sign,  he  has  been  made  to  tremble,  the  whole 
pail  being  shaken,  and  has  spilled  the  milk  in  his 
hasty  flight.  Bring,  then,  the  pail  nearer  to  me,'lhat  I 
may  bless  it.'  And  this  being  done,  the  half-empty 
vessel  which  the  saint  had  blessed  was  at  the  same 
moment  found  miraculously  filled ;  and  the  little  that 
had  remained  at  the  bottom  had  quickly  increased 
under  the  benediction  of  his  holy  hand  till  it  reached 
the  brim." 

This  story  has  not  been  recounted  with  a  view  to 


VISITS    OF    ANGELS.  223 

raise  a  smile,  but  to  illustrate  the  beliefs  of  the  period 
with  which  we  are  deaHng.^  Again,  on  more  than 
one  occasion  St.  Columba  sees  demons  contending  in 
the  air  with  the  angels  for  the  souls  of  persons 
recently  deceased  (lib.  iii.,  cc.  7,  11,  12,  14,  etc.). 
And  our  views  of  the  spirit  world  are  enlarged  by  the 
story  of  an  affectionate  wife,  who,  having  died  a  year 
before,  joined  in  mid-air  with  the  holy  angels  in  a  fight 
with  demons  for  the  soul  of  her  husband  who  had  just 
died.  This  conception,  no  doubt,  would  have  been 
less  startling  at  a  time  when  women  were  not  unknown 
to  engage  in  military  service. 

If  evil  angels  figure  largely  in  the  narrative,  so  also 
do  the  good  angels.  They  appear  to  Columba  again 
and  again ;  and,  though  ordinarily  invisible  to  others, 
they  were  on  one  occasion  detected  in  numbers  by  a 
prying  monk,  who  had  acted  the  spy  upon  the  saint's 
privacy  (lib.  iii.,  c.  17).  On  another  occasion,  while 
Columba  was  writing  in  his  little  cell  in  lona,  he  was 
heard  to  cry  suddenly,  "  Help  !  help  !  "  The  two 
brothers  who  were  in  attendance  at  the  door  at  once 
inquired  what  was  wanted,  and  were  told  that  it  was 
only  that  he  had  ordered  the  angel  of  the  Lord,  who 
was  standing  among  them,  to  save  a  brother  monk  who 
was  at  that  moment  falling  from  the  roof  of  a  great 
house  at  Derry  in  Ireland,  and  who,  by  the  aid  of 
the  angel  "flying  with  the  speed  of  lightning,"  was 
caught  before  he  reached  the  ground  (lib.  iii.,  c.  16). 

^  In  a  Ahxnuale  Exorcismorum  (Antuerpios  1626),  issued  with 
the  approbation  of  the  bishop  of  Antwerp,  which  lies  before  me, 
there  is  to  be  found  an  "  Exorcismus  pro  lacte,"  and  an 
"  Exorcismus  pro  butyro." 


2  24  'i'HE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

At  another  time,  when,  contrary  to  his  wish,  the  saint's 
life  was  prolonged  in  answer  to  the  prayers  of  the 
churches,  the  angels  who  had  come  for  his  soul  were 
stopped  on  the  other  side  of  the  sound,  and  stood 
there  upon  a  rock,  anxious  to  fulfil  their  mission. 

In  an  atmosphere  of  this  kind  the  whole  Life  is 
bathed.  It  may  be  that  in  our  day  we  make  too 
little  of  angelic  ministrations,  and  too  little  of  the 
power  of  evil  spirits.  I  shall  not  discuss  the  question. 
I  only  note  that  we  live  in  a  world  of  religious  thought 
very  different  from  that  of  St.  Columba.  And  I  am 
convinced  that  it  is  quite  as  important  to  understanding 
the  time  that  we  should  know  the  truth  on  this 
subject,  as  that  we  should  know  it  upon  questions 
concerning  the  archaeology  of  tonsures  and  canonical 
hours. 

Illustrations  of  the  current  belief  of  the  early  Celtic 
Cliurch  could  be  supplied  in  abundance  from  the 
records  of  Irish  hagiology.  It  may  suffice  to  notice 
the  parallel  to  the  memorable  combat  in  which,  after 
a  long  struggle,  St.  Columba  expelled  the  demons 
from  lona,  that  is  afforded  in  the  story  of  St.  Patrick 
as  recorded  in  the  Tripartite  Z//^,  when  "oh  Crua- 
chan-aichle,  the  modern  Croagh  Patrick,  he  had  his 
last  encounter  with  the  demons  of  Ireland.  When  to 
the  violent  ringing  of  his  bell,  accompanied  by  the 
recital  of  psalms,  and  the  invocation  of  the  sacred 
Name,  his  adversaries  were  unwilling  to  yield,  he 
Hung  the  bell  with  all  his  might  into  the  thickest  of 
their  ranks,  and  thereby  spread  such  consternation 
among  them,  that  they  all  fled  with  precipitation  into 


INVOCATION   OF    SAINTS.  22$ 

the  sea,  and  left  the  island  free  from  their  spiritual 
aggressions  for  seven  years,  seven  months,  and  seven 
days."  1  ^Vhether  the  demons  were  ever  so  long 
absent  from  Ireland,  may  indeed  be  questioned  ;  but 
we  need  feel  little  hesitation  in  believing  that  they 
have  been  very  active  at  various  times  since  then  in 
that  "most  distressful  country." 

i\s  for  Scotland,  it  is  sad  to  remember  that  the 
terror  which  darkened  life  during  the  witch-finding 
and  witch-burning  post-Reformation  times  shows  us 
the  vigorous  survival  of  the  belief  in  the  powerful 
agency  of  demons,  while  the  counterbalancing  faith 
in  the  constant  ministry  of  the  heavenly  angels  was 
an  inappreciable  factor  in  popular  thought. 

Invocation  of  Saints. — Adamnan  leaves  us  in  no 
doubt  as  to  the  fact  that  in  his  time  the  aid  of 
the  prayers  of  departed  saints  was  sought  in  the 
Scottish  Church.  In  Columba's  lifetime  we  have 
evidence  to  show  that  his  prayers  were  believed  to 
be  especially  efficacious.  Persons  at  a  great  dis- 
tance were  convinced  in  their  distress  that  if  St. 
Columba's  prayers  could  be  had,  Heaven  might  be 
more  successfully  approached  (lib.  ii.,  cc.  5,  41). 
Similarly,  St.  Columba,  in  peril  at  sea,  called  on 
St.  Canice,  then  in  Ireland,  to  aid  him  by  his  prayers 
(lib.  ii.,  c.  12).  Columba  himself,  on  the  memorable 
evening  preceding  his  death,  declared :  '*  These, 
O  my  children,  are  the  last  words  I  address  to  you, 
that  ye  be  at  peace  and  have  unfeigned  charity  among 
yourselves  ;    and  if  you  follow  the   example   of  the 

^  Dr.  Reeves'  5L  Patrick^ s  Bell  and  Shrine. 

P 


2  26  THE   CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

huly  fathers,  God  the  Comforter  of  the  good  will 
be  your  helper,  and  7,  abiding  with  Nif/i,  unit 
intercede  for  you "  (Ub.  iii.,  c.  24).  It  was  not 
unnatural  then  that,  after  his  death,  they  would 
remind  him  of  his  promise.  This  they  seem  to  have 
done  by  the  somewhat  remarkable  plan  of  placing,  on 
a  special  occasion,  some  of  his  books  and  garments 
upon  the  altar,  and  by  the  invocation  of  his  name. 
And  God  granted  to  the  holy  man,  we  are  told,  an 
answer  to  their  requests  (lib.  ii.,  c.  46).  Again,  a 
plague  is  stopped  in  answer  to  the  prayers  of  St. 
Columba,  now  departed  (lib.  ii.,  c.  47).  We  have 
instances  of  even  reproaches  directed  against  St. 
Columba,  when  he  seemed  slow  to  answer  the  suppli- 
cations addressed  to  him  {et  quodauunodo  quasi  accusare 
twstrum  Columbam  ccRpiinus^  lib.  ii.,  c.  46). 

Prayers  for  the  Dead. — "  If  there  is  one  practice  in 
the  Christian  Church,"  wrote  the  late  Dean  Plumptre, 
"not  specifically  recognized  in  the  New  Testament, 
which  can  claim  the  sanction  of  primitive  antiquity, 
it  is  that  of  praying  for  the  souls  of  the  faithful 
departed."  And  there  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that 
the  Celtic  Church  differed  from  the  rest  of  Christen- 
dom in  this  particular.  But,  while  the  evidence  is 
clear  for  later  dates,  what  the  reader  is  most  struck 
with  in  the  account  of  St.  Columba's  life  is  silence 
where  we  should  have  expected  references  to  the 
practice.  It  was  not,  as  I  think,  till  the  notion  of 
Purgatory  had  been  given  definiteness  and  importance 
by  Pope  Gregory  the  Great  (590 — 604),  that  the 
somewhat  vague  and  general  prayers  for  the   "rest 


PRAYERS  FOR  THE  DEAD.         227 

and  refreshment"  of  the  faithful  dead,  which  had 
been  given  a  place  in  the  Liturgies,  developed  into  the 
expression  of  desire  for  the  relief  of  souls  suffering 
pains  in  the  other  world.  Columba's  labours  were  all 
but  concluded  before  the  writings  of  Gregory  could 
possibly  have  made  their  influence  felt  in  Ireland  and 
Scotland.  Notions  which  St.  Augustine  had  thought 
permissible  to  be  entertained  as  a  private  opinion 
became  consolidated  and  given  a  precision  and 
definiteness  unknown  before  the  time  of  Gregory.  It 
may  be  somewhat  of  an  over-statement  to  say,  with 
Shrockh  and  Hagenbach,i  that  Gregory  was  "  the 
inventor  of  Purgatory,"  but  it  was  his  writings,  and 
more  especially  the  Dialogues,  with  their  visions 
exhibiting  the  state  of  the  departed,  that  gave  the 
main  impetus  to  the  belief  that  souls  could  be  re- 
lieved from  purgatorial  pains  by  the  prayers  of  the 
faithful. 

Now,  with  one  exception  (if  indeed  it  can  be  regarded 
as  an  exception),  we  find,  so  far  as  I  can  recollect,  not 
a  single  example  of  prayers  for  the  dead  in  Adamnan's 
Life  of  St.  Columba.  We  are  here  considering  the 
question  merely  from  the  historical  standpoint;  and 
it  is  of  interest  to  notice  the  general  view  that  is 
presented  throughout  the  book.  In  one  place  a  soul 
is  represented  as  being  carried  off  to  "  the  place  of 
suffering  "  {ad  loca  painaruni\  but  it  will  perhaps  be 
thought  that  a  sufficiendy  clear  interpretation  of  the 
expression  is  to  be  found  by  observing  that  it  is 
demons  who  carry  off  this  soul,  and  that  it  is  the  soul 
^  History  of  Chris'.ian  Doctrines,  vol.  ii. ,  p.  97. 


228  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IX    SCOTLAND. 

of  one  who  is  suddenly  slain  in  the  midst  of  his  guilt 
(lib.  i.,  c.  30).  In  another  place  (lib.  i.,  c.  1), 
Adamnan  speaks  of  the  saint  seeing  the  souls  of  the 
righteous  being  carried  to  the  highest  heaven  {ad 
sH/funa  cccloruni).  Accounts  of  deaths  are  frequent, 
and  it  is  certainly  noteworthy  that  there  does  not 
seem  to  be  any  expression  that  would  lead  us  to 
suppose  that  Columba  had  before  his  mind  a  place  of 
purgatorial  pains.  The  argument  from  silence  is 
doubtless  always  hazardous,  but  the  hazard  diminishes 
in  proportion  with  the  likelihood  that  the  belief,  if  it 
existed,  would  have  expressed  itself. 

The  one  possible  exception  is  found  in  book  iii., 
chap.  13,  which  is  entitled,  "Of  the  vision  of  holy 
angels  who  carried  to  heaven  the  soul  of  the  bishop, 
St.  Columban  Mocu  Loigse."  The  title  is  con- 
temporary, be  it  observed,  with  the  text,  which  on 
account  of  its  importance  may  be  transcribed. 

"  One  morning,  while  the  brethren  were  putting  on 
their  sandals  and  preparing  to  go  to  the  different  duties 
of  the  monastery,  the  saint,  on  the  contrary,  bade  them 
rest  that  day  and  prepare  for  the  holy  oblation,  order- 
ing also  that  some  addition  should  be  made  to  their 
repast,  such  as  was  given  on  the  Lord's  Day.  *  It 
behoves  me  to-day,'  said  he,  '  although  I  be  unworthy, 
to  celebrate  the  holy  mysteries  of  the  Eucharist  out 
of  veneration  for  that  soul  which  this  last  night 
ascended  to  paradise  beyond  the  starry  spaces  of  the 
heavens,  borne  amid  choirs  of  holy  angels.'  And 
when  he  had  spoken  the  brethren  did  as  they  were 
bid,  and  rested  that  day  according  to  the  command- 


STORY    OF    ST,    COT,UI\Tr.A.  229 

ment  of  the  saint ;  and  the  sacred  mysteries  ^  having 
been  prepared,  they  accompany  the  saint  to  the 
church  in  their  white  robes  {albati)  as  on  festivals 
{(juasi  die  solenni).  But  it  came  to  pass  that  when  in 
the  course  of  chanting  the  offices  that  customary 
l)rayer  was  being  sung  in  wliich  the  name  of  St. 
Martin  is  commemorated,  the  saint  said  suddenly  to 
tlie  chanters,  when  they  came  to  the  place  where  the 
name  occurs,  '  To-day  ye  must  chant  for  St.  Colum- 
ban,  the  bishop.'  Then  all  the  brethren  who  were 
there  understood  that  Columban,  the  bishop  in 
Leinster,  the  dear  friend  of  Columba,  had  passed  to 
the  Lord." 

Let  us  see  now  what  is  to  be  learned  from  this 
story.  First,  we  may  notice,  in  passing,  that  it  is 
suggested  by  the  narrative  that  the  Eucharist  was  not 
celebrated  daily.  Secondly,  if  *''' paradise'"  stood  by 
itself,  we  might  be  the  more  ready  to  understand  it  of 
the  intermediate  state  of  the  blessed  dead,  but  the 
heading  of  the  chapter,  which  is  of  the  same  date 
as  the  text  of  the  earliest  manuscript  of  the  Life^ 
interprets  it  as  ^^  Iieaven.^'  Thirdly,  it  would  seem  as 
if  the  saint  desired  that  the  name  of  Columban  should 
be  substituted  for  that  of  St.  Martin,  or,  more 
probably,  placed  before  it  in  the  prayer.  Now,  if  we 
could  be  sure  what  this  prayer  was,  all  would  be  clear. 
But,  so  far  as  I  know,  it  was  not  the  practice  in  the 
West  at  this  period,  in  those  prayers  of  the  mass 
in  which  the  names  of  acknowledged  saints  occur,  to 

^  I  read  with  the  thirteenth-century  manuscript,  in  Archbishop 
Marsh's  library,  tnisteriis  for  ministeriis. 


230  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND, 

pray  for  them,  but  rather  to  pray  to  God  that  we 
might  be  aided  by  their  intercessions.  Dr.  Bernard 
MacCarthy,  in  his  learned  discussion  on  the  Stowe 
Missal,  in  the  Transaciioiis  of  the  Royal  Irish 
Academy,^  has,  I  think,  suggested  the  truth  when 
he  considers  that  "the  customary  prayer"  {consueta 
deprecatio)  is  the  prayer  known  as  Cum  onmibus^ 
which  declares  that  the  spiritual  sacrifice  was  offered 
to  God  the  Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Spirit  by  the 
celebrant  for  himself  and  for  his  people  [or  the  monks 
of  his  monastery],  for  the  whole  body  of  the  Church 
catholic,  "and  for  comnienwrating'^  {pro  commemo- 
rafido)  the  venerable  patriarchs,  ("prophets,  apostles, 
martyrs,  and  all  saints,  "  that  they  may  vouchsafe  to 
earnestly  eiitreat  our  Lord  God  for  us."  Then 
follows,  in  this  ancient  Irish  missal,  a  list  of  the  Old 
Testament  worthies  and  prophets  —  St.  John  the 
Baptist,  St.  Mary  the  Virgin,  the  Apostles,  and  other 
early  saints,  and  "  likewise,"  it  goes  on,  "the  bishops, 
Martin,  Gregory,  Maximus,  Felix,  ....  etc." 
Observe  that  in  this,  the  most  ancient  of  all  Irish 
missals,  the  name  of  Martin  comes  first  among  the 
bishops  ;  so  that  I  fancy  we  may  not  unreasonably 
picture  to  ourselves  Columba,  after  the  words  "  Item 
episcoporum^^'  stopping  the  chanters,  and  uttering  the 
words  transcribed  above. 

The  point  of  the  story  seems  to  me  to  be  that  St. 

Columba  treated  the  day  as  the  festival  of  the  saint. 

He  at  once  placed  his  departed  friend  among  the 

glorified  saints.     The    celebration    is   held    "  out    of 

^  Vol.  xxvii. ;  see  pp.  156  and  217. 


A    FF.STIVAT.-MASS.  23  T 

veneration"  for  the  soul  departed,  and  the  chanting 
pro  Colnmhmio  episcopo  is  to  be  understood  as  a 
clianting  pro  comniemorando  Columbano  episcopo^  his 
prayers  being  sought  for  the  worshippers,  and  not  the 
worshippers'  prayers  being  offered  for  him.  In  a 
word,  it  was,  as  we  would  say  in  our  present  language, 
rather  a  festival-mass  than  a  requiem-mass.  This  may 
seem  a  great  departure  from  primitive  usage ;  but  I 
am  only  endeavouring  to  interpret  historically  an 
historical  document. 

What  has  been  said  gives  us  no  warrant  for 
supposing  that  there  was  any  omission  from  the 
Liturgy  of  the  customary  prayer  "  for  all  who  rest  in 
Christ,"  that  God  would  grant  them  "a  place  of 
refreshment,  light,  and  peace."  Indeed,  in  our  oldest 
Irish  missal — the  Stowe  Missal — which  some  would 
place  as  early  as  not  very  long  after  the  death  of  St. 
Columba,^  we  find  this  prayer.-  And,  grammatically, 
it  is  doubtless  applicable  to  the  saints,  the  long  lists 
of  whom,  including  St.  Mary  the  Virgin,  precede  it." 
If  this  latter  view  be  the  true  one,  we  have  here  both 
prayers  for  the  departed  saints,  as  in   some  of  the 


'  "The  second  quarter  of  the  seventh  century,"  Dr. 
MacCarthy.  Mr.  Warren  {Liturgy  and  Ritual  of  the  Celtic 
C/iiiJx/i,  p.  199)  believes,  on  liturgical  grounds,  that  the  oldest 
part  of  the  manuscript  cannot  be  placed  earlier  than  the  ninth 
century.  So  that  one  cannot  speak  with  confidence  as  to  in- 
ferences dependent  on  its  date. 

-  Mr.  Henry  Eradshaw  discovered  that  the  binder  of  the 
Stowe  Missal  altered  the  true  pagination,  which  will  be  found 
correctly  in  Dr.  MacCarthy's  paper  in  T/ie  Transactions  of  the 
Royal  Irish  Academy,  vol.  xxvii. 

'^  See  also  in  the  Stowe  Missal  the  mass/r^  viortuis  fhirilnts. 


232  TTTE    CELTIC    CTTURCTI    IX    SCOTLAND. 

liturgies  of  the  early  Church,  and  also  the  prayer  that 
these  saints  would  entreat  God  for  the  worshippers. 

•NFr.  Warren  {Lifuroiy  aiid  Ritual  of  the  Celtic  Church, 
p.  105)  has  cited  from  Walafrid  Strabo's  Life  of  St. 
Gall,  the  apostle  of  Switzerland,  a  passage  which 
illustrates  the  practice  of  the  Celtic  Church  less  than 
twenty  years  after  the  death  of  Columba.  When  St. 
Gall  was  aware  that  St.  Columbanus,  of  Luxeiiil, 
"  had  passed  from  the  miseries  of  this  life  to  the  joys 
of  Paradise"  (a.d.  615),  he  ordered  that  the  sacrifice 
of  the  mass  should  be  offered  "  for  his  rest."  In  the 
meagreness  of  records  of  Scottish  origin,  it  may  be 
permitted  us  to  cite  the  scribe's  colophon  in  the 
Reichenau  codex  of  Adamnan's  Life  of  St.  Colujuha, 
"an  early  eighth  century  MS.":  "Whoever  reads 
these  little  books  of  the  virtues  (?  miraculous  powers) 
of  Columba,  let  him  entreat  the  Lord  for  me, 
Dorbbene,  that  I  may  possess  eternal  life  after 
death."  Similarly,  Adamnan  himself  added  to  the 
end  of  his  book.  Concerning:;  the  LLoly  Places,  an 
entreaty  for  the  readers'  prayers  for  the  "  Divine 
clemency  "  on  behalf  of  the  ''  holy  priest  Arculf," 
who  dictated  it ;  and  that  for  himself,  "  the  wretched 
sinner  who  wrote  it,"  they  would  entreat  "  Christ,  the 
Judge  of  the  world."  This  last  phrase  reminds  one 
of  the  request  of  St.  Paul  on  behalf  of  Onesiphorus, 
that  he  might  "find  mercy  of  the  Lord  in  that  day" 
(2  Tim.  i.  18).  Again,  some  of  the  early  Irish  monu- 
mental epigraphs  request  prayers  for  the  departed.^ 

^  See  Warren,  he.  cit.,  wliere  other  illustrations  will  be  found. 
Tlie  colophons  of  the  scribes,  though  suggestive  of  the  belief  in 


PRAYER    TO    ST.    COT-UMDA.  233 

As  regards  direct  invocation  of  the  saints,  it  seems 
to  me  that  Mr.  Warren  {Lkurgy  and  Riiual^  etc.,  p. 
108)  has  somewhat  overstated  the  case  in  alleging 
that  "  there  are  no  instances  recorded  of  the  modern 
practice  of  praying  to  departed  saints."  Confining 
ourselves  to  Adam  nan's  Life  of  St.  Columha^  we  are 
told  that  it  was  "  with  psalms  and  fasting  and  the 
invocation  of  his  [Columba's]  name"  that  the  monks 
of  Adamnan's  time  besought  on  one  occasion  a 
favourable  wind  for  their  voyage;  and  on  another, 
when  the  wind  was  adverse,  the  words  of  a  direct 
address  to  him  are  recorded  thus :  "  Does  our 
injurious  delay  please  thee,  O  saint  ?  Hitherto  we 
hoped  that  some  comfort  and  help  in  our  labours 
would  have  been  afforded  by  thee,  through  God's 
favour,  since  we  thought  that  thou  wert  held  in  great 
honour  by  God."  The  Litany  of  Saints  in  the  Stowe 
Missal  may  date  from  the  eighth  century.  From  the 
evidence  adduced,  it  would  seem  probable  that  at  the 
time  of  Adamnan  the  transition  to  direct  prayers 
addressed  to  the  saints  had  begun  in  the  Columban 
Church. 

Features  of  interest  in  the  Ritnal  of  the  Celtic  Church. 
— We  may  now  turn  to  notice  some  of  the  more 
remarkable  features  of  the  ritual  of  the  Celtic  Church.^ 
The  bread  used  in  the  Eucharist  was,  contrary  to  the 
prevailing  practice  in  the  West  at  the  time,  sometimes, 

the  efficacy  of  prayers  for  the  dead,  cannot  ordinarily  be  cited 
as  conchisive  proofs. 

^  For  other  examples,  fuller  details,  and  authorities,  see  Mr. 
Warren's  valuable  work. 


234  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

if  not  generally,  unleavened.  St.  Gall,  according  to  his 
biographer,  Walafrid  Strabo,  was  accustomed  to  use 
unleavened  bread.  But  instances  of  a  similar  variation 
from  the  prevailing  practice  are  also  to  be  found  in  the 
history  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  Church.  I  am  not  satisfied 
that  this  usage  prevailed  generally  in  the  Celtic  Church. 

The  mixed  chalice,  we  may  say  with  much  con- 
fidence, was  universal  in  the  Celtic  Church.  Our 
earliest  Irish  missal,  already  referred  to,  supplies  (in  an 
appended  tract  in  the  Irish  tongue)  ritual  directions 
for  the  mixture,  which  was  to  be  accompanied  with 
certain  prayers.  It  is  worth  noticing  the  peculiarity 
that  the  water  was  first  placed  in  the  chalice.^  The 
same  tract  supplies  mystical  interpretations  of  the 
symbolism  of  the  water  and  of  the  wine  added  to  it. 
As  regards  the  mixed  chalice,  the  universal  practice 
of  the  early  Church  was  naturally  adhered  to. 

In  the  Irish  tract  in  the  Stowe  Missal  we  find  most 
elaborate  directions  for  the  fraction,  and  the  placing 
of  the  particles  in  a  cruciform  shape  upon  the  paten, 
together  with  explanations  of  the  symbolism.  We  find 
nothing  exactly  like  it  in  any  known  missal,  but  features 
resembling'  it  may  be  found  in  the  Eastern  and  the 
Spanish  liturgies.  It  would  seem  that  the  cross 
thus  made  was  to  be  surrounded  at  Easter  with  a 
circle — "circuit  wheel" — of  other  portions,  and  Dr. 
MacCarthy  reminds  us  in  this  connection  of  the 
familiar  form  of  Celtic  monumental  crosses.  And  it  is 
minutely  prescribed  from  which  portions  of  this  figure 

^   MncCavthy,  in  the  TyctiJsaci.  Royal  Irish  Acad.,  vol.  xxvii., 
p.  245- 


CET.EERATION    OF    THE    EUCHARIST.  235 

various  classes  of  persons  were  to  be  communicated. 
Thus,  if  we  may  follow  the  guidance  of  Dr.  IMacCarthy, 
the  celebrant  communicated  himself  with  the  portion 
in  the  centre  of  the  cross  ;  bishops  were  communi- 
cated with  portions  from  the  upper  part  of  the  shaft ; 
priests  from  the  left  arm  of  the  cross  ;  the  clergy  below 
the  rank  of  priests  from  the  right  arm ;  anchorites 
from  the  lower  part  of  the  shaft;  ''clerical  students  " 
from  the  upper  left  quadrant  of  the  surrounding  circle  ; 
''  innocent  youths  "  i  from  the  upper  right  quadrant ; 
"penitents"  from  the  lower  left  quadrant;  married 
persons  and  first  communicants  from  the  lower  right 
quadrant. 

Not  less  artificial  is  the  regulation  of  the  various 
numbers  of  the  portions  which,  according  to  this  Irish 
tract,  were  to  be  consecrated  on  various  occasions  ; 
and  'not  less  fanciful  the  reasons  assigned  for  these 
numbers.  Thus,  five  for  ordinary  days,  "  in  figure  of 
the  five  senses  "  ;  seven  on  the  festivals  of  saints  and 
virgins  (except  the  chief),  "in  figure  of  the  seven  gifts 
of  the  Holy  Spirit  " ;  eight  for  martyrs,  "in  figure  of 
the  octonary  of  the  New  Testament "  (/.  e.  the  four 
Gospels,  Acts,  Pauline  Epistles,  Catholic  Epistles,  and 
Apocalypse);  nine  on  the  Lord's  Day,  ''in  figure  of 
the  nine  folks  of  Heaven,  and  of  the  nine  grades  of 
the  Church  "  ;  -  eleven  for  the  Apostles,  "  in  figure  of 

^  Does  this  phrase  point  to  the  practice  of  communicating 
infants?  ,      ^^  ,     ^^.         , 

-  The  commonly-received  grades  of  the  Heavenly  Hierarchy 
need  not  he  recounted.     In  *'  the  nine  grades  of  the  Church, 
perhaps  the  writer  concurred  with  Isidore  in  addmg  bis/wfs  and 
clerks  to  the  seven  now  reckoned  in  the  Roman  Church. 


2  3<^  TTTE    CELTIC    CHURCTT    IN    SCOTLAND. 

the  imperfect  number  of  the  Apostles  after  the  scandal 
of  Judas  "  ;  twelve  on  the  day  of  the  commemoration 
of  the  Last  Supper,  "  in  remembrance  of  the  perfect 
number  of  the  Apostles";  thirteen  on  little  Easter 
[Low  Sunday]  and  on  the  Feast  of  the  Ascension,  in 
figure  of  Christ  with  the  Twelve,  and  (as  is  wortli 
observing  in  explanation  of  how  an  uncertain  number 
of  communicants  was  to  be  dealt  with)  this  is  added, 
"  at  first.  They  are  to  be  distributed  more  minutely 
in  going  to  Communion."  "  The  five,  and  the  seven, 
and  the  eight  and  the  nine,  and  the  eleven,  and 
the  twelve,  and  the  thirteen — they  are  five  [and] 
sixty  together,  and  that  is  the  number  of  parts  which 
is  wont  to  be  in  the  Host  of  Easter  and  of  the 
Nativity,  and  of  Pentecost ;  for  all  that  is  contained 
in  Christ."  ^  How  far  this  complex,  highly  artificial, 
and,  as  most  persons  will  think,  unedifying  ritual 
prevailed,  we  are  unable  to  say,  and  when  it  made 
its  appearance  it  is  impossible  to  judge  till  some 
definite  pronouncement  has  been  generally  accepted 
by  palaeographers  upon  the  date  of  this  portion  of 
the  volume  known  as  the  Stowe  Missal.  As  it 
stands,  however,  it  will  serve  to  disabuse  the  minds 
of  those  who  would  regard  the  Celtic  Church  as 
characteristically  marked  by  a  simple  and  primitive 
plainness  of  ceremonial.  The  reader  must  not  sup- 
pose that  the  ritual  directions  here  transcribed  are 
the  mere  outcome  of  the  wanton  fancy  of  the  Celts 
of  Ireland.  In  a  tract  attributed  to  Ildefonsus,  who 
was  bishop  of  Toledo  from  657  to  667,  we  find 
^  MacCarthy,  /oc.  cit..  p.  253. 


THE    EUCllARlSTlC    BREAD.  237 

some  curious  resemblance  to  the  practices  enjoined 
in  Ireland.  We  find  that  the  "  breads  "  were  to  be 
arranged  in  certain  forms  and  their  number  was  to 
vary  with  the  festival.  Thus,  on  Christmas  Day,  at 
each  of  the  three  masses,  five  portions  were  to  be 
arranged  in  the  form  of  a  cross,  and  twelve  others  in  a 
circle  around  it,  the  five  to  signify  Christ  and  the  four 
evangelists,  and  the  surrounding  circle  the  choir  of 
angels.  At  Easter,  at  each  of  three  masses,  five  and 
forty  in  the  shape  of  a  cross.  At  Pentecost,  also  five 
and  forty  arranged  as  a  cross  in  the  middle  of  a  square 
(symbolizing  the  heavenly  Jerusalem).  On  the  feasts 
of  the  Ascension  and  Transfiguration,  the  same  num- 
ber and  form  as  at  Christmas.  On  Sundays  and 
festivals  of  the  saints  only  five,  in  the  form  of  a  cross. 
The  centre  "  bread"  was  to  be  somewhat  larger  than 
the  rest  as  signifying  "  the  Lamb  in  the  midst."  The 
resemblance  between  these  regulations  and  those  of 
the  Irish  tract  are  obvious,  and  one  may  reasonably 
suspect  a  more  than  accidental  connection  between 
the  two. 

The  Greek  Church  at  tlie  present  day,  in  the  office 
uf  the  Prothesis  (or  preparation  of  the  elements  before 
the  celebration  of  the  Liturgy),  has  an  elaborate 
arrangement,  on  the  "  disk  "  or  paten,  of  portions  of 
the  bread.  With  some  few  modern  additions  the  rite 
is  ancient.  These  portions  are  meant  to  symbolize 
"  The  Holy  Lamb  "  in  the  midst,  St.  Mary  the  Virgin, 
the  prophets,  the  Apostles,  Basil  and  the  great  oecu- 
menical doctors,  Stephen  and  other  martyrs,  Antony 
and  other  ascetics,  Cosmas   and  Damian  and  other 


238  THE   CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

unmercenary  saints  (/.  e.  those  who  took  no  reward 
for  their  miracles  of  heaUng,  etc.),  Joachim  and 
Anna,  and  all  saints,  the  Emperor  of  Russia,  the 
Holy  Synod,  living  bishops,  etc.,  private  persons  of 
the  living  whom  it  is  desired  to  remember,  private 
persons  of  the  dead  whom  it  is  desired  to  remember.^ 
While  another  symbolical  arrangement  devised  on  a 
different  principle  exists  in  the  Mozarabic  Missal.-' 

Joint  Consecratioti  of  the  Eucharist  by  Presbyters. — 
A  custom  which,  it  would  seem,  is  absolutely  unique 
is  brought  to  our  notice  by  an  incident  in  the  life 
of  Columba,  as  related  by  Adamnan  (lib.  i.,  c.  35). 
The  story  is  related  by  us  in  full  in  another  place 
(p.  252)  for  another  purpose,  and  the  reader  is  referred 
to  it.  x\  second  priest  was  invited  by  the  celebrant, 
if  only  of  the  rank  of  a  priest,  to  join  in  the  con- 
secration, at  least  as  regards  the  manual  acts  {paneni 
frangere).  But  a  bishop,  when  celebrating,  took  the 
service  alone.  This  practice  seems  to  be  the  exact 
reverse  of  a  usage  known  elsewhere  in  the  West,  that 
presbyters  should  join  both  in  the  words  and  manual 
acts  with  a  bishop  when  celebrating  the  Eucharist. 
In  the  present  Roman  service  for  the  ordination  of 
priests,  the  rubric  directs  the  bishop  at  the  celebration 
to  raise  his  voice  somewhat,  so  that  the  priests  who 

^  The  existing  rite  is  exhibited  in  Kajewsky's  Eucholo^ion  ihr 
Orthodox- Kathollschen  Kirche,  Wien,  1861.  The  reader  may 
also  consult  Neale  and  Littedale's  translations  of  the  Liturgies  of 
S.S.  Mark, James,  etc.,  p.  179. 

-  The  INIozarabic  arrangement  may  conveniently  be  found 
pictured  in  Mr.  Hammond's  Liturgies,  Eastern  and  Western, 
p.  341. 


COMMUNION    IN    LOTH    KINDS.  239 

have  been  just  ordained  may  be  able  to  repeat  all 
the  words  with  him,  and  especially  the  words  of 
consecration,  which  should  be  said  at  the  same 
moment  by  the  ordained  priests  and  the  bishop. 
And  as  late  as  the  fifteenth  century,  on  Holy  Thurs- 
day at  Chartres,  six  priests,  standing  in  line  at  the 
altar  with  the  bishop,  three  on  his  right  and  three  on 
his  left,  sang  the  mass  together  with  him,  and  also 
with  him  performed  all  the  enjoined  ceremonies. ^ 

Conimunio?i  in  both  kinds. — Had  we  no  specific 
evidence  as  to  the  practice  of  the  Celtic  Church, 
we  might  reasonably  believe  that  it  did  not  differ 
from  that  of  the  rest  of  Christendom.  And  there 
is  no  question  that  down  to  the  twelfth  century  the 
Communion  was  administered  in  both  kinds  to  the 
laity.  But  we  possess  in  the  documents  of  the  Celtic 
Church  which  have  come  down  to  us,  definite  and 
independent  evidence  establishing  the  fact.  Thus, 
to  take  first  our  solitary  Scottish  liturgical  fragment, 
the  Book  of  Deer,  from  an  office  for  the  Communion 
of  the  Sick,  we  read  first  the  notice,  "  Here  give  the 
sacrifice  to  him,"  then  the  benediction,  or  words  of 
delivery,  "The  body  with  the  blood  of  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ  be  health  to  thee  for  eternal  life  and 
salvation";  then  immediately  follow  the  words, 
"Refreshed  with  the  body  and  blood  of  Christ  let 
us  ever  say  to  Thee,  O  Lord,  Alleluia,  Alleluia.  .  .  . 
I  will  take  the  cup  of  salvation  and  call  upon  the 
name     of     the     Lord.     Alleluia,      Alleluia."     Both 

^  Warren  {Liturg.  and  Kit.  of  Celtic  Chnn/i,  p.  129),  who 
uives  his  authorities. 


2  40  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

elements,  as  Mr.  Warren  remarks,  ''seem  to  have 
been  administered  at  once,"  the  bread  having  been 
dipped  in  the  wine.  This  method,  technically  known 
as  "  intinction,"  had  obvious  advantages  in  com- 
municating the  sick.  It  prevails  at  the  present  day 
in  the  Greek  Church  for  the  general  communicating 
of  the  laity,  a  spoon  being  used  for  conveying  the 
sacrament  to  the  mouth  of  tlie  recipient.  In  the 
West,  in  675,  the  practice  was  condemned  at  the 
Council  of  Braga,  because  our  Lord  had  delivered 
to  His  Apostles  the  bread  and  the  wine  separately, 
but  notwithstanding  the  practice  spread.  The  later 
history  of  the  usage  does  not  concern  us. 

In  the  Irish  A^itiplioiiary  of  Bangor  we  meet 
the  following  Communion  formulae  :  "  We  have  re- 
ceived the  body  of  the  Lord,  and  we  have  drunk 
His  blood;  we  will  fear  no  evil,  for  the  Lord  is 
with  us.  .  .  .  Take  ye  this  sacred  body  of  the 
Lord  and  the  blood  of  the  Saviour,  unto  life  ever- 
lasting. Alleluia."  ^  And  "  Refreshed,"  etc.,  as  in 
the  Book  of  Deer.  In  the  Book  of  Mulling  (eighth 
century?)  the  rubric  for  the  administration  runs: 
"Then  he  is  refreshed  with  the  body  and  blood." 
In  a  ninth-century  Irish  MS.  at  St.  Gall,-  we 
have  the  Communion  anthem,  "  Come  ye,  eat  My 
bread  and  drink  My  wine  which  I  have  mixed  for 
you";  and  the  post-communion,  *'We  give  Thee 
thanks,  O  Lord,  Holy  Father,  Almighty,  Everlasting 
God,  who  hast  satiated  us  with  the  communion  of 
the  body  and  the  blood  of  Christ."     In  the  Stowe 

^  Comi)aie  Hymn  313  (from  Aiiiiphoiiayy  of  Batv^or)  in  Hymns 
AncioU  and  Modern.  ^  See  Warren,  loc.  clt.,  p.  179. 


THE    TONSURE.  24I 

Missal  the  Communion  anthem  appears,  "  Eat,  O 
My  friends ;  alleluia ;  and  drink  ye  abundantly 
{inebriamlni)^  O  most  beloved ;  alleluia."  All  these 
fall  in  with,  if  they  do  not  absolutely  demonstrate, 
the  existence  of  the  Communion  in  both  kinds. 

The  study  of  the  Irish  liturgical  remains  and  of 
our  solitary  Scottish  liturgical  relic  of  the  Celtic 
period,  the  Book  of  Deer  (see  p.  248),  leaves  no  doubt 
that  it  was  from  Gallican,  not  Roman  sources,  the 
liturgical  worship  of  the  Celtic  Church  had  its  origin. 
A  thorough  treatment  of  the  subject  would  involve 
us  in  liturgical  technicalities  unsuitable  to  a  work 
such  as  this.  But  ample  proof  will  be  found  adduced 
by  Mr.  Warren  in  his  Lifio\s^y  and  Ritual  of  the  Celtic 
Chin'ch. 

This  may  not  be  an  inconvenient  place  for  saying 
something  of  two  of  the  more  important  subjects 
of  controversy  between  the  Irish  and  the  Roman 
parties. 

The  Tonsii7-e. — Among  the  subjects  of  lively  con- 
troversy between  those  who  represented  the  Roman 
mission  in  Britain  and  the  adherents  of  the  Celtic 
Church,  was  the  form  of  the  ecclesiastical  tonsure. 
The  question  does  not  appear  to  have  been  raised 
by  the  wise  Augustine  of  Canterbury ;  but  subse- 
quently it  roused  the  most  violent  animosities  between 
the  two  parties.  The  Roman  tonsure  consisted  in  a 
circle,  more  or  less  wide,  on  the  top  of  the  head 
being  made  bare  with  the  razor,  while  a  fringe  of  hair 
surrounded  it  like  a  crown,  which  was  mystically 
regarded  as  symbolizing  the  Saviour's  crown  of  thorns. 

Q 


242 

The  Celtic  tonsure,  as  I  understand  it,  like  the 
Roman  tonsure,  showed  a  fringe  of  hair  in  front, 
but  the  top  of  the  head  was  not  shaved  beyond  a 
line  drawn  from  ear  to  ear,  so  that,  viewed  from 
behind,  there  was  nothing  that  marked  the  ecclesiastic 
or  monk  from  the  ordinary  layman.  Recent  writers 
seem  to  concur  generally  in  thinking  that  the  Celtic 
tonsure  showed  the  whole  of  the  front  of  the  head 
as  clean  shaved ;  but  the  original  authorities  do 
not  seem  to  me  to  bear  this  out.  The  passage  in 
the  Abbat  Ceolfrid's  Letter  to  Naiton,  king  of  the 
Picts  (a.d.  710),  preserved  by  Bede,^  seems  very 
distinctly  to  say  that,  viewed  in  front,  there  seemed 
to  be  a  crown,  but  that  when  you  looked  at  the 
back  of  the  head  you  discovered  that  the  "  crown," 
which  you  thought  you  saw,  was  cut  short,  was  not  a 
real  and  complete  "  crown."  It  is  plain  that  if  the 
whole  of  the  hair  on  the  front  of  the  head  was  shaved 
off,  there  would  not  be  anything  resembling  a  corona 
of  hair.  The  shorn  part  of  the  head  seems  to  have 
had  no  special  significance  for  most  of  the  old  writers, 
except  as  being  essential  to  bring  out  the  significant 
part — the  surrounding  fringe  of  hair,  which  symbolized 
the  sufferings  of  our  Lord.- 

The  Celtic  tonsure  seemed  to  the  Roman  party 
to   be   a   maimed  piece  of  symbolism;  it  exhibited 

^  Hist.  EciL,  lib.  v.,  c.  22. 

-  If  this  view  is  correct,  the  figure  of  St.  Columba  depicted 
in  the  St.  Gall  manuscript  of  Adamnan's  Life  of  the  saint, 
with  a  frontal  fringe  of  hair,  may  possibly  not  be,  as  r)ishop 
Reeves  supposes,  a  mistake  into  which  a  ninth-century  copyist 
might  fall.     See  Historians  of  Scotlund,  vol.  vi.,  p.  cxiv. 


ROMAN    AND    CFXTIC    TONSURES.  243 

only  a  truncated  "  crown  "  to  those  who  could  look 
all  round. 

The  words  of  Ceolfrid  are  so  precise  and  vivid  that 
they  seem  to  me  to  quite  outweigh  what  some  would 
infer,  perhaps  too  hastily,  from  a  passage  in  an  epistle 
attributed  to  the  writer  known  as  Gildas  (570?)/ 
who  says  that  the  Romans  asserted  that  the  Celtic 
tonsure  had  its  origin  in  that  of  Simon  Magus,  whose 
tonsure  extended  only  to  all  the  anterior  part  of  the 
head  from  ear  to  ear.-^' 

The  matter  is  of  little  moment ;  but  if  we  try  to 
picture  to  ourselves  the  ancient  Irish  and  Scottish 
monks,  it  of  course  makes  a  difference  in  the  image 
we  create  before  the  mind's  eye. 

It  is  a  question  of  more  interest  how  the  difference 
between  the  two  tonsures  originated.  If  monasticism 
was  introduced  into  Ireland  from  the  "great  monas- 
tery "  of  Whithorn  in  the  north,  there  can  be  little 
doubt  that  a  tonsure  of  the  Roman  shape  came  with 
it. — The  Greek  tonsure,  or  shaving  the  whole  head, 
called  "the  tonsure  of  St.  Paul,"  if  once  introduced 
and  prevailing,  could  never,  I  imagine,  have  become 
transformed  into  the  Celtic  tonsure,  while  it  is  not 
difficult  for  any  one  who  is  familiar  with  the  gradual 
transformations   of  ecclesiastical   vestures   to   under- 

^  The  section  of  the  second  epistle  which  refers  to  the 
tonsure  is  corrupt  in  its  text,  and  is  regarded  by  liaddan  and 
Stubbs  {Councils,  vol.  i.,  pp.  108  sq.)  as  of  a  hiter  date  tlian 
Gildas,  though  prior  to  the  general  adoption  of  the  Roman 
tonsure. 

-  The  text  of  the  same  passage  which  Archbishop  Usher  cites 
from  a  difterent  M.S.  omits  the  mention  of  "all  the  anterior 
part  of  the  head."     Antiq.  Brit,  EccL,  p.  479,  edit.  1687. 


244  "THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

Stand  how  the  Roman  tonsure  may  have  been  in  the 
course  of  years  curtailed  at  the  back  of  the  head,  and 
so  changed  into  what  I  take  to  be  the  Cehic  form. 
I  cannot  think  that  there  is  the  sHghtest  evidence  for 
supposing,  with  Prof.  Rhys(CV///V  Britain^  p.  72),  that 
the  Celtic  tonsure  was  a  revival  of  the  practice  of 
the  Druids.i 

At  the  time  when  the  controversy  between  the 
Roman  and  Celtic  ecclesiastics  on  the  subject  of  the 
shape  of  the  tonsure  began  to  wax  warm,  the  Roman 
party  declared  that  the  tonsure  of  their  opponents 
was  derived  from  Simon  Alagus,  while  their  own 
was  that  of  Simon  Peter,  the  chief  of  the  Apostles. 
But  this  opprobrious  language  had,  so  far  as  we  know, 
no  historical  foundation,  and  was,  no  doubt,  only  one 
of  the  amenities  so  common  in  excited  religious  debate. 
The  Celtic  tonsure  was  sometimes  further  reviled  by 
attributing  its  origin  to  the  swineherd  of  the  Irish 
king,  Laoghaire.^  But  this  story  is  as  valueless  as  the 
former. 

When  we  remember  the  bitterness  of  controversy 
between  the  Church  party  and  the  Puritans  in  the 
sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries,  about  the  use  of 

^  As  I  difter  from  the  weight  of  recent  authority  on  the  form 
of  the  Celtic  tonsure,  I  think  tlie  passage  of  Ceolfrid  on  which  I 
have  laid  stress  should  here  be  given.  ''  Quoe  [tonsura]  aspectu, 
in  frontis  quidem  superficie,  coronx  videtur  speciem  proeferre  ; 
sed  ubi  ad  cervicem  considerando  perveneris,  decurtatam  earn 
quam  te  videre  putabas  invenies  coronam."  In  Bcdi\  lib.  v., 
c.  22. 

-  This  name  is  pronounced  Lcary.  Todd's  Life  of  St.  Patrick^ 
p.  150,  note.  The  story  which  may  account  for  the  statement  as 
to  the  tonsure  is  given  by  Rhys  {Celtic  Britain,  p.  73),  from 
Stokes'  Goidelica, 


THE    EASTER   CONTROVERSY.  245 

the  "  corner-cap,"  or  when  we  recall  more  recent  heated 
discussions  (sometimes  attended  by  mob  violence)  on 
the  wearing  of  the  black  gown  or  surplice  in  the  pulpit, 
we  may  perhaps  be  more  inclined  to  extend  our  charity 
to  those  who  found  "  a  principle  at  stake  "  in  a  matter 
apparently  so  trivial  as  hair-cutting.  On  the  part  of 
the  Irish  and  Scotch,  there  was  a  natural  attachment  to 
a  practice  which  they  had  derived  from  their  predeces- 
sors in  the  faith,  holy  men  whose  memories  were  held  in 
the  most  profound  veneration.  And  further,  it  might 
not  unreasonably  rouse  the  indignation  of  the  Celtic 
party  if  it  were  sought  arbitrarily  to  impose  upon  them 
an  observance,  the  acceptance  of  which  might  be 
construed  into  a  badge  of  subjection  to  a  foreign 
authority.  Their  own  mode  of  hair-cutting  had  been 
handed  down  to  them  from  the  past  ;  why,  they 
might  reasonably  ask,  should  they  give  it  up  ?  Why 
should  they  submit  to  the  requirements  of  those  who 
possessed  no  right  to  command?  We  can  easily 
understand  how  good  and  independent-minded  men 
might  argue  thus.  The  student  of  English  history 
knows  well  it  was  not  for  a  matter  of  twenty  shillings 
that  John  Hampden  resisted  the  imposition  of  the 
ship-money. 

The  Easter  Controversy.— The  same  spirit  of  loyalty 
to  their  forefathers  in  the  faith  entered  largely  into 
the  firmness  with  which  the  members  of  the  Celtic 
Church  resisted  the  pressure  exerted  by  the  Roman 
party  that  they  should  adopt  the  mode  of  calculating 
the  fall  of  Easter  which  prevailed  in  other  parts  of 
Western  Christendom.     In  this  controversy,  however, 


246  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

the  Strangers  had  more  reason  on  their  side  than  in 
the  matter  of  the  tonsure. 

In  past  times  there  were  mistakes  among  students 
as  to  the  nature  of  the  difference  on  this  subject 
between  the  Celtic  and  the  Roman  Churches.  Some 
erroneously  imagined  that  the  Scottish  Church  fol- 
lowed the  practice  of  the  "  Quartodecimans  "  in  the 
second  century.  But  this  is  now  known  to  be  an 
entirely  incorrect  view.  It  is  enough  for  our  purpose 
to  state  that  while  the  *'  Quartodecimans  "  celebrated 
Easter  on  the  fourteenth  day  of  the  first  Jewish 
month,  without  regard  to  what  day  of  the  week  their 
Easter-day,  thus  calculated,  might  happen  to  be,  the 
Irish  or  Scottish  Church  always  observed  Easter  upon 
a  Sunday.  The  difference  between  the  Celtic  church- 
men and  the  rest  of  the  West  at  the  time  of  the 
controversy  arose  out  of  the  fact  that  the  Celtic 
Church  calculated  Easter  by  the  aid  of  a  cycle  which, 
while  retained  by  them,  had  been  abandoned  else- 
where as  being  less  astronomically  correct.  x\n 
explanation  in  detail  would  involve  many  elaborate 
astronomical  considerations  that  would  be  out  of 
place  here.i 

"  The  important  facts,"  as  Mr.  F.  E.  Warren  says, 
''  are  these — that  before  the  Council  of  Nice  the  practice 
of  the  British   harmonized  with  that  of  the   Roman 

^  The  curious  may  consult  Prof.  Stokes'  Ireland  and  the 
Celtic  Church,  pp.  149—155  ;  Haddan  and  Stubbs'  Councils, 
vol.  i.,  p.  152,  Appendix;  the  article  *'  Easter"  in  Smith  and 
Q\i^t'(!i\-A.m%  Dictionary  of  Christian  Antiquities;  Usher's  Brit. 
EccL's.  Antiij.y  cap.  xvii.  ;  Skene,  Celtic  Scotland,  vof.  ii,,  pp. 
7-IO. 


THE    EASTER    CONTROVERSY.  247 

Church,  the  most  ancient  Roman  table  for  Kaster 
agreeing  with  that  of  the  British  Church  ;  but  that, 
owing  to  its  [subsequent]  isolation  from  the  rest  of 
Western  Christendom,  the  Celtic  Church  had  never 
adopted  the  various  alterations  and  improvements 
which,  on  astronomical  and  not  on  theological  grounds, 
had  been  from  time  to  time  accepted  by  the  Continental 
Church"  {Liturgy  and  Ritual  of  the  Celtic  Churchy  p. 
64).  It  was  not  till  a.  d.  463  that  the  Roman  Church 
adopted  the  cycle  in  the  form  which  Augustine  of 
Canterbury  and  his  followers  desired  to  press  upon 
their  Celtic  brethren.  Both  Scotland  and  Ireland  had 
received  Christianity  at  an  earlier  date,  and  the  old 
method  of  calculating  Easter  had  had  in  these 
countries  many  long  years  of  possession  when  it  was 
first  sought  to  oust  it  in  favour  of  the  more  accurate 
system.  It  is  not  improbable  that  if  the  Roman 
missionaries  had  confined  themselves  to  methods  of 
calm  exposition  and  reasoning,  the  British  Churches 
would  on  this  point  have  given  way  long  before  they 
did  so  in  fact.  But  violent  invective  did  not  lead  to 
the  result  desired.  As  the  Celtic  tonsure  was  styled 
by  the  opprobrious  name  of  "  the  tonsure  of  Simon 
j\[agus,"  so  the  offensive  and  utterly  inapplicable  title 
of*'  Quartodecimans  "  Avas  affixed  to  the  supporters  of 
the  Celtic  Easter.  The  evils  of  protracted  and  em- 
bittered controversy  must  in  justice  be  laid  chiefly  at 
the  door  of  the  Roman  party.  Men  of  the  Celtic  race 
are  certainly  not  slow  in  resenting  anything  that  savours 
of  assumption  ;  yet  we  need  not  seek  to  offer  excuses 
for  the  uncharitableness  of  such  Celtic  ecclesiastics  as 


248  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IX    SCOTLAND. 

would  refuse  to  eat,  not  only  at  the  same  table,  but 
even  under  the  same  roof  with  their  brethren  of  the 
Roman  party.  ^ 


ADDITIONAL   NOTE. 

'  THE    LOOK    OF    DEER.' 

The  solitary  liturgical  relic  of  the  Celtic  Church  in 
Scotland  is  to  be  found  in  tlie  Book  of  Deer,  now 
deposited  in  the  University  Library  at  Cambridge. 
As  described  by  Dr.  John  Stuart,  in  his  admirable 
edition  printed  for  the  Spalding  Club  (1869),  it  consists 
of  eighty-six  folios,  of  small  but  rather  wide  8vo.  form, 
and  contains  the  Gospel  of  St.  John  and  portions  of 
the  other  three  Gospels ;  a  fragment  of  an  Office  for 
the  Visitation  of  the  Sick  ;  the  Apostles'  Creed  ;  and 
a  charter  of  King  David  I.  to  the  clerics  of  Deer, 
which  is  situated  in  almost  the  centre  of  the  district 
of  Buchan,  in  the  north- east  of  Aberdeenshire.  The 
character  of  the  handwriting  has  led  palaeographers, 
like  Professor  Westwood,  to  assign  the  part  of  earliest 
date  to  the  ninth  century.  Its  illuminations  and 
ornaments  are  quite  of  the  same  kind  as  those  of 
many  Irish  Books  of  the  Gospels.  Its  connection 
with  the  Columban  monastery  at  Deer  is  unquestion- 
able, but  we  have  no  materials  to  help  us  to  determine 
whether  it  was  the  work  of  an  Irish  or  native  (/.  e. 

^  As  was  alleged  of  the  Irish  bishoj:),  Dagam,  Bede,  Eccles. 
Hisf.,  lib.  ii.,  c.  4. 


'THE    LOOK    OF    DEER.'  249 

Pictish)  scribe.  The  Creed  is  of  the  same  date  as  the 
Gospels,  but  the  fragment  of  the  Visitation  of  the  Sick 
"  is  in  a  considerably  later  hand,"  while  certain  entries 
of  grants  of  land,  written  in  the  vernacular  Gaelic, 
appear  to  have  been  inserted  in  the  eleventh  and 
twelfth  centuries.  The  liturgical  portion  of  the  Book 
of  Deer,  which  is  very  brief,  may  be  found  in  Mr. 
AN^irren's  Liturgy  and  Ritual  of  the  Celtic  Church,  a 
volume  more  easily  accessible  than  Dr.  Stuart's.  The 
full-page  representations  of  the  Evangelists  are  of  the 
usual  ostentatiously  grotesque  kind,  which  leave  little 
doubt  that  the  artists  deliberately  avoided  any  attempt 
at  realistic  portraiture.  Three  of  the  four  figures  show 
a  curious  square  ornament  upon  the  breast,  apparently 
suspended  by  straps  from  the  neck.  This  ornament 
may  not  improbably  represent  a  case  in  which  the 
book  of  each  Evangelist's  Gospel  is  preserved  (see 
p.  319).  The  figure  prefixed  to  the  Gospel  of  St. 
Luke  is  represented  in  the  frontispiece  of  this  volume. 


250 


CHAPTER   XIV. 

THE    EPISCOPATE    IN    THE    CELTIC    CHURCH. 

It  may  seem  to  us,  with  the  enlarged  range  of  early 
documentary  evidence  of  late  years  opened  up  or 
made  more  generally  available,  that  it  would  be  im- 
possible for  any  candid  inquirer  to  entertain  the  view 
long  prevalent  in  this  country,  that  the  ancient  Church 
in  Scotland  was  '^  Presbyterian  "  in  its  organization. 
But  even  apart  from  the  misleading  influence  of  party 
sentiment,  it  was  in  fact  not  difficult  for  writers  in  the 
sixteenth,  the  seventeenth,  and  indeed,  as  one  may 
add,  the  eighteenth  century,  to  misunderstand,  or  to 
draw  unwarrantable  inferences  from  the  documents 
that  were  most  ready  at  hand.  Such  Scottish  writers 
as  John  of  Fordun  (see  p.  43)  and  the  very  able  and 
distinguished  John  Major  (1469 — 1550)^  were  ecclesi- 
astics of  the  Roman  Church.  It  was  not  unnaturally 
supposed  that  their  statements  might  on  such  a  subject 
be  accepted  without  question.    These  statements  were 

^  See  the  Life  of  Major,  by  Mr.  A\.  J.  G.  Mackay,  prefixed  to 
Vi'X]ox'?>  History  of  Grcato'  Britain  (1892),  among  the  publications 
of  the  Scottish  History  Society. 


EVIDENCE    OF    THE    EPISCOPATE.  25  I 

repeated  by  George  Buchanan,  and  by  many  subse- 
quent historians,  almost  to  our  own  day.  The  notions 
so  long  prevailing  popularly  in  Scotland  were  thus 
very  natural,  more  especially  as  they  fell  in  with 
Presbyterian  opinion  and  sentiment. 

When  we  come  to  examine  the  primary  evidence  for 
ourselves  we  find  that  the  very  first  authentic  testimony 
to  Christian  missionary  efforts  in  Scotland,  that  of  Bede 
{Etties.  Hist.,  lib.  iii.,  c.  4),  represents  Ninian  as  a 
bishop.  The  authority  of  the  Life  of  St.  Kentigeni  is, 
as  we  have  seen,  of  comparatively  little  value  ;  but  such 
as  it  is,  it  declares  Kentigern  to  have  been  a  bishop. 
But  it  is  to  that  store-house  of  authentic  facts,  the  Life 
of  his  contemporary,  Columba,  that  we  turn  for  the 
most  trustworthy  information  on  the  subject.  And  as 
to  the  existence  of  the  Episcopate,  as  distinct  from  the 
Presbyterate,  in  the  time  of  Columba,  there  can  be  no 
possible  doubt.  In  his  time,  and  in  the  missionary 
Church  founded  by  him,  it  is  absolutely  certain  that 
bishops  existed  as  a  distinct  order,  possessing  powers 
and  privileges  which  were  not  shared  in  by  presbyters. 

It  has  been  already  pointed  out  that,  as  the  more 
abundant  remains  of  ancient  Irish  architecture  and 
Irish  art  should  be  utilized  for  the  true  understanding 
of  the  ancient  architecture  and  art  of  Celtic  Scotland, 
so  the  copious  ecclesiastical  documents  of  Ireland 
cannot  with  reason  be  overlooked  in  any  attempt  to 
gain  a  correct  view  of  the  condition  of  the  contem- 
porary Church  in  Scotland,  which  was  its  offshoot. 
But  I  prefer,  as  sufficient  for  our  purpose,  confining 
ourselves,  at  the  outset,  to  an  examination  of  the  in- 


252  THE    CELTIC   CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

valuable  work,  Adamnan's  Life  of  the  great  Scottish 
missionary,  with  a  view  to  see  what  may  be  learned 
from  that  source  alone  on  the  question  before  us. 

Two  incidents  recorded  by  Adamnan  are  deserving 
of  careful  examination.  The  first  story  runs  as  follows  : 
"  Concerning  Cronan  the  Bishop.^  At  another  time 
a  certain  pilgrim  from  the  province  of  IMunster  came 
to  the  saint  (/.  e.  Columba).  This  man  in  his  humility 
did  all  that  he  could  to  disguise  himself,  so  that  no 
one  might  know  that  he  was  a  bishop ;  but  this  could 
not  be  hidden  from  the  saint,  for  on  the  next  Lord's 
Day,  having  been  commanded  by  the  saint  to  conse- 
crate the  Body  of  Christ,  as  the  custom  was,  he  calls 
to  him,  the  saint,  that  they  might  together,  as  two 
Presbyters,  break  the  bread  of  the  Lord.-^'  Thereupon 
the  saint  went  to  the  altar,  and  suddenly  looking 
into  his  face,  thus  addresses  him  :  *  Christ  bless  thee, 
brother;  do  thou  break  this  bread  alone,  according 
to  the  rite  of  bishops.  Now  we  know  that  thou  art  a 
bishop.  Why  hast  thou  so  long  endeavoured  to  dis- 
guise thyself  so  that  the  reverence  {veneratio)  due  to 
thee  from  us  might  not  be  rendered?'  On  hearing 
the  saint's  words,  the  humble  pilgrim  was  greatly 
astonished,  and  reverenced  {I'eneratus  est)  Christ  in 
the  saint.  And  those  who  were  present  in  much 
amazement  gave  glory  to  the  Lord"  (lib.  i.,  cap.  35). 

Here,  then,  we  see  a  bishop  ;  we  see  that  his  passing 

^  This  title,  which  is  wanting  from  some  of  the  later  MSS., 
is  fomid  in  the  earliest,  the  Reichenau,  text  (known  as  Cod.  A), 
attributed  by  Reeves  to  the  beginning  of  the  eighth  century.  It 
may  have  been  transcribed  during  the  life  of  the  author. 

-  On  joint  consecration  by  Presbyters,  see  p.  238. 


AID    THE    r.LACK.  253 

himself  off  as  a  presbyter  was  regarded  as  a  proof  of 
his  humility  :  we  see  that  a  special  reverence  was  held 
to  be  due  to  bishops ;  we  see  that  bishops  celebrated 
the  Eucharist  with  a  peculiar  rite  without  associating 
a  presbyter  in  the  act.  We  see  the  great  abbat, 
the  founder  of  the  monastery,  a  man  of  royal  blood, 
as  being  merely  a  presbyter,  giving  place  to  the 
unknown  stranger  from  Munster  because  he  was  a 
bishop. 

The  second  passage  from  the  Life  of  St.  Columha 
wliich  calls  for  special  notice  in  this  connection  may 
now  be  cited.     "The  prophecy  of  the  blessed  man 
concerning  Findchan  the  presbyter,  founder  of  that 
monastery  in  the  Ethican  land  (Tiree),  which  in  the 
Scotic  tongue  is  called  Artchain.     At  another  time, 
Findchan,  the  presbyter  and  soldier  of  Christ  (/.  e.  a 
monk),  brought  with  him,  in  the  dress  of  a  cleric,  from 
Scotia  {i.e.  Ireland)   to  Britain,  Aid,  surnamed  the 
Black  (Aid    Dubh,  of  the    Irish   records),  who  was 
sprung  from   a  royal  stock,  and  of  the  race  of  the 
Picts;  and  this  with  a  view  to  his  spending  some 
years  with  him  in  his  monastery.     Now  this  Aid  the 
Black  had  been  a  man  stained  with  much  blood  and 
had  slaughtered  many.     It  was  he,  too,  who  had  slain 
Diarmit,  son  of  Cerbul,  by  the  appointment  of  God, 
King  of  all  Scotia  (Ireland).     This  same  Aid  then, 
after  some  time  was  spent  in  retirement,  was,  a  bishop 
having  been  summoned,  ordained  a  presbyter,  although 
not  rightly  {non  recte),  in  the  house  of  the  aforesaid 
Findchan.     Yet  the  bishop  did  not  dare  to  place  a 
hand  upon  his  head  unless  the  same  Findchan,  who 


2  54  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

loved  Aid  after  the  flesh  {caruaUter  amans\  would 
first  place  his  right  hand  on  his  head,  in  token  of 
concurrence  and  approval  {pro  confirmatione).  When 
such  an  ordination  as  this  was  afterwards  made  known 
to  the  saint,  he  was  sore  displeased  ;  and  then  forth- 
with he  pronounces  this  terrible  sentence  upon  that 
Findchan  and  Aid  who  had  been  ordained  :  '  That 
right  hand  which  Findchan,  contrary  to  the  law  of 
God  and  the  rule  of  the  Church  {contra  fas  et  jus 
ecdesiasticum),  placed  upon  the  head  of  the  son  of 
perdition,  shall  presently  rot,  and,  after  great  pain  and 
torture,  shall  be  interred  in  the  earth  before  himself ; 
and  he  shall  survive  his  buried  hand  many  years. 
But  Aid,  who  was  unwarrantably  {indehite)  ordained, 
shall  return  as  a  dog  to  his  vomit,  and  become  again 
a  bloody  murderer,'  "  etc.  We  need  not,  for  our 
purpose,  relate  how  the  prophecies  were  fulfilled. 

In  this  story  we  learn  that  when  it  was  sought  to 
ordain  Aid,  a  bishop  had  to  be  sent  for.  We  learn 
that  the  ordination  was  by  the  laying  on  of  the 
bishop's  hand.  We  learn  that,  probably  knowing  the 
infamous  repute  of  Aid,  the  bishop  would  not  venture 
to  ordain  him  till  Findchan,  head  of  the  monastery, 
had  committed  himself  to  formal  approval  by  laying 
on  his  hand.  If  Findchan  believed  that  he  could  by 
his  own  act  have  ordained  his  friend  of  ill-repute, 
there  would  have  been  no  need  of  calling  in  an 
unwilling  bishop. ^     We  may  add  that  it  appears  that 

1  It  may  he  wortli  mentioning  tlint  the  name  of  this  Findchan 
is,  according:  to  Reeves,  preserved  in  Kilfinichcu,  a  parish  in 
tlie  island  of  Mull. 


ORDINATION    OF   AID.  255 

ordination  to  the  Presbyterate  was  by  the  laying  on 
of  hands,  and  that  perhaps  here,  as  elsewhere  in  the 
West  at  this  time,  and  as  still  preserved  in  the  ordinal 
of  the  Church  of  England,  presbyters  joined  with  the 
bishop  in  the  act.  The  bishop's  insisting  on  Findchan's 
first  placing  his  hand  on  the  head  of  Aid  may  perhaps 
be  expressed  in  words :  "  Let  me  see  that  you,  the 
head  of  this  monastery,  are  going  to  take  your  share 
in  the  ordination  of  this  man,  so  that  I  shall  not  have 
to  bear  the  blame  alone." 

It  will  be  observed  that  no  punishment  is  recorded 
to  have  been  inflicted  on  the  ordaining  bishop.  And 
the  explanation  may  probably  be  found  if  we  assume 
that  the  bishop  was  a  member  of  the  community  in 
Tiree,  and  would  have  been  under  the  pressure  of 
monastic  obedience  to  the  head  of  the  house.  This 
leads  us  on  to  notice  the  fact  that  it  was  the  general 
rule  that  the  heads  of  Columban  monasteries  should 
not  have  higher  rank  than  the  great  founder,  the 
presbyter  Columba.  |  But  the  episcopal  offices  belong- 
ing to  ordination  had  to  be  performed,  and  so  we 
very  commonly  find  a  bishop  among  the  members  of 
the  community.  The  Scottish  Church  of  the  Colum- 
ban period  was  mainly,  if  not  universally,  monastic  ; 
and  these  two  facts  brought  about  the  unusual 
arrangement  that  bishops  (as  members  of  the  com- 
munity) were  subject  to  the  jurisdiction  of  the  abbat, 
or  head  of  their  house. 

In  any  country  ministered  to  in  things  spiritual  by 
secular  clergy,  the  position  of  the  bishop  is  one  of 
superiority,  both  as  regards  the  '^  right  of  order  "  and 


256  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

the  "  right  of  jurisdiction."  In  a  country  where 
religion  is  represented  by  the  monastic  system,  while 
the  bishop's  "right  of  order"  remains  untouched,  his 
"right  of  jurisdiction"  is  affected,  unless  it  happened 
that  the  head  of  the  monastery  (as  was  not  unfrequent 
in  Ireland,  and  not  unknown  in  Scotland)  was  himself 
of  episcopal  rank.  Bede  took  note  of  the  anomaly  in 
the  Scottish  Church.  Writing  of  Hii  (lona),  he  says, 
"  It  was  the  usage  that  that  island  should  always 
have  for  its  ruler  {I'edoreiii)  an  abbat  who  was  a 
presbyter,  to  whose  rule  both  the  whole  province  and 
even  the  bishops  themselves,  by  an  unusual  arrange- 
ment, should  be  subjected,  in  accordance  with  the 
example  of  their  first  teacher,  who  was  not  a  bishop, 
but  a  presbyter  and   monk"  [Eaies.   Hisf,^  lib.  iii., 

A  very  striking  characteristic  of  the  Celtic  Church, 
whether  in  Scotland  or  Ireland,  was  its  monastic  form. 
The  land  was  held  for  Christ  by  a  number  of  fortresses 
or  garrisons,  of  which  metaphor  we  are  reminded  by 
the  rampart -circled  monasteries. ^  The  comman- 
dants of  these  fortresses,  more  especially  in  Scotland 
(as  generally  established  by  Columban  monks),  were 
more  frequently  presbyters  than  bishops.  In  a  wild, 
imsettled,  and  uncivilized  country,  a  diocesan  organiz- 
ation can  never  be  much  more  than  a  paper  organiz- 
ation— a  scheme,  it  may  be,  beautifully  designed, 
but  incapable  of  being  fully  realized  for  many  long 
years.  The  wonderful  successes  of  the  Irish  missions 
may  well  suggest  the  query  whether  the  planting  down 
1  See  p.  124. 


POSITION    OF    BISHOP.  257 

in  a  heathen  country  of  communities  of  ardent 
workers  under  the  guidance  of  a  capable  head,  possess- 
ing large  powers  of  action  and  control,  who  might  be 
(in  accordance  with  what  is  at  once  the  primitive  and 
the  prevailing  and  general  order  of  the  Church)  a 
bishop,  would  not,  even  now,  be  more  likely  to  be 
effective  than  the  methods  generally  followed  in  our 
modern  missions. 

The  position  so  commonly  occupied  by  the  bishop 
in  relation  to  the  abbat  of  the  Columban  monasteries, 
though  differing  from  the  prevailing  usage  of  the 
Christian  Church,  and  to  a  large  extent  contrary  to 
the  design  for  which  episcopacy  was  primarily  estab- 
lished, does  not  stand  in  history  wholly  without 
parallel.  The  practice  of  raising  priests  to  the 
episcopal  order  though  they  possessed  no  sees,  was 
not  peculiar  to  the  Celts.  As  eady  as  the  fourth 
century,  as  we  learn  from  the  historian  Sozomen,  two 
of  the  monks  of  Edessa,  whose  names  he  records, 
were  raised  to  the  episcopate,  not  as  having  juris- 
diction, but  "  for  the  sake  of  honourable  distinction." 
He  adds  that  they  were  consecrated  in  their  own 
monasteries  {Eccks.  Hist,  lib.  vi.,  c.  34).  In  the 
monastery  of  Mount  Sinai  we  learn  that  in  the  eleventh 
century  there  were  five  hundred  monks  subject  to  an 
abbat,  and  having  their  own  bishop.  In  the  West  the 
great  Italian  monastery  of  Monte  Cassino,  and  the 
monasteries  of  St.  Martin  at  Tours,  and  of  St.  Denys 
at  Paris,  possessed  an  arrangement  by  which  one  of 
the  monks  was  consecrated  bishop  and  was  ready  to 
perform  any  episcopal  act  required,  though  possessing 


258  THP:    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

no  jurisdiction. 1  In  the  great  abbey  of  Fulda,  the 
most  important  and  influential  monastery  in  mid- 
Germany— indeed  perhaps  one  might  say  in  the  whole 
land  of  German-speaking  people — ecclesiastical  juris- 
diction was,  up  to  1752,  exercised  over  the  wide 
extent  of  territory  attached  to  the  abbey  by  the 
presbyter  abbat,  but  one  of  his  subject  monks  was 
invested  with  the  episcopal  character,  and  performed 
such  offices  as  the  discipline  of  the  Church  confines  to 
the  episcopate.^ 

An  English  churchman  is  in  our  day  further  helped 
to  understand  the  subordination  of  the  bishop  to  the 
abbat  by  recalling  the  not  unfrequent  practice  of  ap- 
pointing bishops  who  have  retired  from  their  sees  in  the 
colonies  to  offices  in  English  cathedral  establishments. 
Such  a  bishop  holding  an  archdeaconry  or  canonry  is 
subject  to  the  dean  in  his  cathedral,  but  he  is  still  a 
bishop.  In  respect  to  the  organization  of  the  early 
Irish  Church,  of  which  the  Scottish  Church  of  Columba 
was  only  a  colonial  offshoot,  Dr.  Todd^  seems  to 
have  correctly  stated  the  case  that  the  most  remarkable 
feature  was  the  extraordinary  multiplication  of  bishops. 
"  There  was  no  restraint  upon  their  being  consecrated. 
Every  man  of  eminence  for  piety  or  learning  was 
advanced  to  the  order  of  bishop,  as  a  sort  of  degree, 
or  mark  of  distinction.  Many  of  them  lived  as 
solitaries  or  in  monasteries.    Many  of  them  established 

^  The  authorities  for  these  statements  will  be  found  in  Dr. 
Todd's  SL  Patrick,  pp.  55—57. 

-  Benedict  XIV.  erected  the  territory  of  P'ulda  into  a  bishopric 
in  the  year  1752.     Acta  SS.,  Octob.  viii.,  p.  165. 

3  St.  Patrick,  Apostle  of  Ireland,  p.  27. 


MULTIPLICATION    OF    BISHOPS.  259 

schools  for  the  practice  of  the  reHgious  Hfe  and  the 
cuhivation  of  sacred  learning,  having  no  diocese  or 
fixed  episcopal  duties ;  and  many  of  them,  influenced 
by  missionary  zeal,  went  forth  to  the  Continent,  to 
Great  Britain,  or  to  other  then  heathen  lands,  to 
preach  the  Gospel  of  Christ  to  the  Gentiles."  Having 
no  sees  and  no  endowments,  it  was  easy  for  every 
considerable  monastery  to  possess  a  bishop  for  the 
performance  of  such  ecclesiastical  offices  as  were 
confined  to  the  highest  order  of  the  ministry.  The 
famous  double  monastery  of  Kildare,  with  communities 
of  both  monks  and  nuns  under  the  headship  of  St. 
Brigid,  possessed  a  bishop.  An  early  biographer^ 
of  the  great  abbess  declares  how  that  when  the 
monastery  had  been  founded  she  came  on  consider- 
ation to  the  conclusion  "  that  she  could  not  be 
without  a  high  priest  to  consecrate  churches  and  to 
settle  the  ecclesiastical  degrees  in  them"  (/.  e.  to  ordain 
presbyters  and  other  clergy).  She  selected  for  this 
purpose  a  solitary  of  high  repute  for  piety,  and 
arranged  that  he  should  "  govern  the  Church  with  her 
in  episcopal  dignity,  that  nothing  of  sacerdotal  order 
should  be  wanting  in  her  churches."  There  may  be 
here  somewhat  of  the  colouring  of  a  later  age,  but 
there  is  no  reason  to  question  the  fact  that  the 
monastery  of  Kildare  possessed  a  bishop,  subject,  in 
his  monastic  relations,  to  the  abbess. 

In  Ireland,  bishops  not  unfrequently  were  heads  of 
monastic  houses,  and  in  Scotland  there  seem  to  be  at 

^  Cogitosus,  whom  Dr.  Graves  (Bishop  of  Limerick)  places  in 
the  seventh,  but  Petrie  and  Todd  in  the  ninth,  century. 


26o  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

least  two  instances,  Lismore  and  Kingarth,  where  a 
bishop  was  chief  of  the  monastic  establishment ;  but, 
as  we  have  seen,  it  became  a  rule  of  the  Columban 
monks  that  the  ecclesiastical  rank  attained  by  the 
founder  should  not  be  surpassed  by  his  successors. 
It  may  be  really  true  (see  p.  89)  that  it  was  by 
what  some  would  call  an  accident  that  Columba  had 
not  been  made  a  bishop.  The  devout  minds  of  his 
followers  may  rather  have  regarded  the  occurrence  as 
revealing  the  Divine  will.  The  superior  dignity  of 
the  episcopal  rank  may  also  have  been  one  of  the 
reasons  why  those  who  aimed  at  perfecting  the  virtue 
of  humility  would  shun  tlie  dignity.  But  however 
this  may  be,  that  bishops  as  distinguished  from 
presbyters  were  well  known  in  the  Columban 
monasteries  there  cannot  be  the  slightest  doubt. 

Among  the  verses  of  the  bard  Dalian  Forgaill, 
Columba' s  contemporary,  may  be  found  lines  describ- 
ing the  company  that  attended  on  the  saint  when  he 
went  to  the  Council  of  Drumceatt  (see  p.  103). 

*'  Forty  Priests  was  their  number  : 
Twenty  Bishops  noble,  worthy. 
For  singing  psalms,  a  practice  without  blame, 
Fifty  Deacons,  thirty  Students." 

I  see  no  reason  to  question  this  statement.  It  shows 
us  the  three  orders  of  the  Christian  ministry.  The 
bishops  are  numerous;  and,  without  laying  much 
stress  on  the  poetic  effusion,  the  epithets  of  honour 
are  applied  to  the  bishops.  One  may  notice  in 
passing  that  the  Diaconate  seems  to  have  been 
something  more  than,  with  ourselves  in  modern  times, 


PREROGATIVES    OF    A    HISHOP.  261 

a  mere  short  probationary  period  before  the  priest- 
hood. 

To  sum  up,  then,  what  may  be  inferred  from  the 
sources  of  information  at  our  disposal.  The  Bisliop 
in  the  Columban  Church,  as  a  member  of  the  monastic 
house,  was  subject  to  his  abbat.  But  he  possessed 
certain  rights  and  prerogatives  that  were  never 
infringed  by  presbyters.  There  is  not  a  particle  of 
evidence  that  any  but  a  bishop  was  ever  permitted, 
or  ever  attempted,  to  confer  holy  orders.^ 

The  straits  to  which  the  exigence  of  their  position 
has  driven  some  controversialists,  may  be  sufficiently 
illustrated  by  citing  a  case  which  has  been  much 
relied  upon  to  show  that  the  power  of  ordination  was 
exercised  by  presbyters  in  the  Columban  Church. 
The  story  of  Aidan's  mission  to  Northumbria  has 
been  already  told  (p.  159);  but  it  is  necessary,  in 
order  to  appreciate  the  supposed  force  of  the  argu- 
ment formerly  alleged  by  Presbyterian  writers,  to  have 
before  us  the  exact  words  of  Bede  {Eccles.  Hist,  lib. 
iii.,  c.  5).  The  historian,  after  relating  how  King  Oswald 
had  requested  that  a  bishop  {aiitistes)  should  be  sent 
to  his  kingdom  from  the  province  of  the  Scots,  tells 
how  the  story  ran  that  the  first  person  sent  in  response 
to  the  request  had  returned  to  lona,  and  declared  in 
an  assembly  of  the  elders  {in  coriveiitu  se?iiorum)  his 

1  Even  in  tlie  mediceval  Church  of  Scotland  (and  the  practice 
is  known  elsewhere),  a  bishop  was  sometimes  a  canon  in  his  own 
cathedral,  and  in  that  capacity  subordinate  to  the  dean.  Thus, 
at  Aberdeen,  according  to  the  Cathedral  Statutes  of  1256,  the 
bishop  was  one  of  the  thirteen  canons.  See  Grub,  Eccles.  Hist,  of 
Scot.,  vol.  i.,  p.  334. 


262  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

hopelessness  of  effecting  the  conversion  of  such  a 
barbarous  and  intractable  people  as  the  Angles,  and 
that  Aidan  was  chosen  to  undertake  the  work ;  "  and 
so  ordaining  him,  they  sent  him  to  preach"  {sicque 
ilium  ordinantes  ad  pr(Bdica7idum  iniseru7it.)  Now,  in 
discussing  this  passage,  it  was  pointed  out,  first,  that 
Bede  says  "ordaining,"  not  "consecrating."  ^  But 
while  it  is  true  that  in  modern  times  it  is  customary 
to  use  the  word  "consecrate"  when  speaking  of 
bishops,  and  "ordain"  when  speaking  of  priests,  it  is 
well  known  to  students  of  ecclesiastical  antiquities 
that  "ordain"  w^as  in  former  days  constantly  used  of 
bishops  as  well  as  of  the  lower  orders  of  the  ministry. 
It  would  be  easy  to  fill  page  after  page  with  examples 
from  the  Latin  Fathers  and  Western  Councils  of 
examples  of  this  use  of  the  word  "  ordain  "  ;  while,  on 
the  other  hand,  the  word  "consecrate"  is  frequently 
used  of  priests  and  deacons.  It  may  suffice  to  quote 
the  very  first  words  cited  by  John  Morinus  in  his 
well-known  work,-  as  the  very  earliest  account  of 
Latin  ordinations,  "Let  the  bishop  who  is  about  to 
be  ordauied  be  first  examined";  while  successive 
Pontificals  and  other  ritual  books  give  us  such  expres- 
sions as  "  Prayer  for  bishops  about  to  be  ordained^^^ 
"When  a  bishop  is  ordained,'^  "The  ordinatmi  of  a 
bishop  begins  thus,"  "  Exhortation  to  the  people  when 
a  bishop  is  ordained^'  etc.  But  what  is  more  pertinent 
to  our  purpose,  Bede  himself  uses  the  word  "  ordain  " 

^  See  A    Vindication  of  the  Ecclesiastical  Part  of  Sir  James 
Dalryniplcs  Historical  Collections,  p.  lO  sq. 

'-  Covi/nentarii/s  de  sacris  ecclesi<c  ordinationi/nis,  \).  259  sij. 


ORDINATION    OF    BISHOPS.  263 

in  his  accounts  of  the  consecrations  of  bishops  and 
archbishops   of   the   Roman   communion,    of  whose 
episcopal  character,  as  distinguished  from  presbyters, 
there  has  been  no  question.     Thus,  speaking  of  St. 
Augustine  of  Canterbury,  he  writes  (hb.  i.,  c.  27),  "By 
the  archbishop  of  the  same  city  [Aries]  he  [Augustine] 
was    ordained    archbishop    for    the    nation    of    the 
Angles."     Augustine,  in  turn,  '■'ordained  two  bishops, 
namely,    Mellitus    and     Justus,"    for    London    and 
Rochester  (lib.  ii.,  c.  3).    His  own  successor,  Laurence, 
he  also  "ordained"  for  Canterbury,  "lest,  upon  his 
death,  the  Church,  as  yet  unsettled,  might  begin  to 
falter,  if  it  should  be  destitute  of  a  pastor,  though  but 
for  one  hour  "  (lib.  ii.,  c.  4).     In  a  later  pari  of  his 
work  (lib.   iii.,   c.   28)    Bede    uses   the  words   "con- 
secrate"  and    "ordain"  without   distinction,  though 
employing  "ordain"  more  frequently.^ 

But  passing  from  this  point  in  regard  to  the  word 
"  ordaining,"  to  which  perhaps  it  may  be  thought 
more  consideration  has  been  given  than  it  deserves, 
we  have  to  examine  the  second  point,  viz.,  that  Bede's 
account  represents  those  who  formed  the  assembly 
of  seniors  {convenfus  se?iiorum)  as  discussing  the 
discourse  of  Aidan,  and  judging  him  to  be  "worthy 

1  Bishop  Gillan,  a  learned  non-juring  divine  of  the  Scottish 
Church,  who  acted  as  Bishop  of  Dunblane  (i  731  — 1735).  l^as 
given  the  illustrations  of  the  use  of  the  word  from  Bede,  in  his 
able  anonymous  pamphlet,  Smie  Remarks  upon  Sir  James 
Dairy mple's  Historical  Collections,  7oith  an  Answer  to  the 
Vindication  of  the  Ecclesiastical  part  of  them.  Gillan  falls  into 
some  errors  of  his  own,  but  he  gives,  on  the  whole,  a  very 
effective  reply  to  Sir  James  Dalrymple. 


264  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

of  the  episcopate,"  and  as  "ordaining"  him  and 
sending  him  to  King  Oswald.  The  question  which 
arises  is — Can  we  reasonably,  with  our  knowledge 
of  the  existence  of  bishops,  properly  so  called,  in 
the  Columban  monasteries,  and  of  how  the  laying 
on  of  a  bishop's  hands  was  regarded  as  necessary 
for  ordination  to  the  priesthood  (see  p.  253),  fairly 
interpret  the  words,  "and  so  ordaining  him,"  in  any 
other  way  than  as  equivalent  to  "  and  so  causing  him  to 
be  ordained  "  ?  The  Roman  missionaries  were  ready 
enough  to  dwell  on  differences,  even  mere  ritual 
differences,  between  the  British  and  Scottish  Churches 
on  the  one  hand,  and  their  own  on  the  other ;  but  no 
complaint  was  ever  made  that  the  Churches  of  our 
islands  had  ventured  on  such  a  departure  from  the 
universal  practice  of  Christendom  as  to  allow  pres- 
byters to  ordain  a  bishop.  Indeed,  the  argument  that 
the  "  seniors "  themselves  performed  tlie  rite  might 
prove  too  much  even  for  Presbyterian  controver- 
sialists; for  how  do  we  know  that  the  seniors  were 
not  most  of  them,  or  all  of  them,  merely  lay  monks  ? 
This  mode  of  interpretation  of  the  phrase  reminds 
us  of  Bishop  Colenso's  method,  who,  from  the  direc- 
tion in  Leviticus  (iv.  11,  12),  that  "the  skin  of  the 
bullock,  and  all  his  flesh,  with  his  head,  and  with  his 
legs,  and  his  inwards,  and  his  dung,  even  the  whole 
bullock,  shall  he  (the  Priest)  carry  forth  without  the 
camp,"  etc.,' seriously  constructs  the  picture  of  "the 
Priest  having  himself  to  carry  on  his  back  on  foot  [for 
a  distance  equal  to]  from  St.  Paul's  to  the  outskirts  of 
the  Metropolis,  the  skin,  and   flesh,  and  head,   and 


USE    OF    THE    WORD    '  ORDAIN.'  265 

legs,  and  inwards,  and  dung,  even  the  whole  bullock."  ^ 
Such  are  the  absurdities  to  which  men  are  driven  by 
a  resolution  to  hold  by  a  pre-assumed  conclusion. 

As  the  question  has,  however,  been  raised,  it  may 
be  mentioned  that  Dr.  Bright  has  collected  some 
passages  where  it  is  beyond  doubt  that  the  person 
said  to  ordain^  in  reality  only  caused  to  he  ordained. 
Thus  the  Emperor  Otho  III.,  in  his  decree,  writes: 
"  We  have  elected  and  ordained  Sylvester  as  Pope." 
Gregory  of  Tours  also  uses  the  word  "  ordain  "  of  the 
action  of  a  king.  And  it  would  seem  to  be  similarly 
used  of  Kenwalch,  king  of  the  West  Saxons.-  Much 
more  important  than  any  elaborate  consideration  of 
such  a  familiar  figure  of  speech,  is  a  recognition  of 
the  particular  circumstances  of  the  case  before  us. 
Oswald,  as  is  probable,  after  the  death  of  his  father, 
had  been  hospitably  received  at  lona,  had  been  there 
instructed  in  the  Christian  faith,  and  had  there  been 
baptized.  When  he  ascended  the  throne,  and  asked 
that  a  bishop  {antistes)  should  be  sent  him  by  the 
Scots,  it  may  surely  be  presumed  that  he  had  learned 
at  lona  what  a  bishop  was,  and  how  much  such  was 
needed  in  a  missionary  Church.  If  there  were  no 
bishops  in  the  Church  where  he  had  received  his 
religious  education,  it  may  be  well  inquired,  how  came 
he  to  esteem  them  of  importance  ?  But  Aidan  was 
not  sent  till  he  had  first  received  "  the  grade  of  the 
Episcopate "   {Eccles.   Hist.^  lib.  iii.,  c.   5).     Can   we 

^  The  Pentateuch  and  Book  of  Joshua  Critically  Examined, 
p.   40. 

-  See  Chapters  of  Early  En;^lish  Church  History,  p.  134. 


266  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

doubt  that  Bede,  who  does  not  scruple  to  tell  us  of  an 
"  unusual  "  subjection  of  the  bishops  to  the  Abbat  of 
Hy,  would  have  told  us  of  the  incomparably  more 
"  unusual  "  (because  absolutely  unique)  custom  of  the 
Scottish  presbyters  dispensing  with  the  services  of  the 
bishops  who,  as  he  mentions,  were  among  them,  and 
taking  on  themselves  to  ordain  a  bishop  for  King 
Oswald  ? 

More  space  has  been  given  to  the  consideration  of 
this  incident  than  it  intrinsically  deserves.  But  con- 
troversialists had,  contrary  to  the  whole  drift  of  the 
context,  pressed  "a  familiar  iisiis  loqnendi  into  a  literal- 
ness  that  gives  the  lie  to  history  and  to  common- 
sense. 

The  character  and  the  extent  of  episcopal  juris- 
diction has  varied  in  different  countries  and  at  different 
times.  It  has  been  affected  by  the  canons  of  Councils, 
by  civil  enactments,  by  the  encroachments  of  monarchs, 
by  Papal  usurpations  ;  but  "  the  right  of  order  "  has 
never  varied.  The  question  of  real  importance  is, 
not  whether  the  Scottish  bishops  of  the  Columban 
period  possessed  such  diocesan  jurisdiction  as  was 
known  in  later  times,  but  whether  they  possessed  the 
exclusive  power  to  confer  Holy  Orders  and  convey 
the  apostolic  commission,  and  were  thus  essentially 
distinguished  as  a  different  grade  from  the  presbyters. 
History  leaves  no  reasonable  doubt  as  to  the  answer. 


267 


CHAPTER   XV. 

ST.    MAROARET    OF    SCOTLAND. 

For  those  who  have  made  no  special  study  in  the 
obscure  and  confused  period  of  Scottish  civil  history 
before  the  close  of  the  eleventh  century,  some  few 
historic  names  have  been  rescued  from  oblivion,  and 
made  commonly  familiar  by  the  genius  of  Shakespeare. 
Without  considering  the  accuracy  of  his  presentment 
of  the  story,  the  master's  great  tragedy  has  made 
every  one  familiar  with  the  figures  of  Macbeth,  of 
King  Duncan,  and  of  Malcolm,  the  son  of  the  mur- 
dered king. 

The  death  of  Duncan  has  been  assigned  to  the 
year  1040.  Malcolm,  still  in  early  youth,  fled  south, 
and  in  his  exile  attained  the  power  of  speaking  the 
language  of  his  future  English  wife.  "  He  grew  up 
into  manhood  under  [Edward]  the  Confessor's  benign 
protection  .  .  .  standing  before  the  Confessor's  throne, 
consorting  with  the  Confessor's  knights,  sitting  at  the 
Confessor's  table."  ^ 

Macbeth  (Macbeda)  is  remarkable  as  having  been 

^  Palsgrave's  Histoy  of  England  and  Normandy,  vol.  iv. , 
p.  311.' 


268  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

the  only  Scottish  king  who  visited  Rome.  His  pil- 
grimage thither,  and  the  lavish  bounty  bestowed  by 
him  there  upon  the  poor,  has  been,  conjecturally,  con- 
nected by  some  modern  historians  with  remorse  for 
his  treacherous  slaughter  of  King  Duncan.  Bene- 
factions to  his  native  church  are  also  recorded.  The 
Register  of  St.  Andrews  includes  a  notice  of  grants 
made  by  him  and  his  queen,  Gruoch — the  "  Lady 
Macbeth  "  of  Shakespeare — to  the  Culdee  hermits  of 
St.  Serf's  Inch  in  Lochleven. 

The  Malcolm  of  Shakespeare  is  Malcolm  III.,  or 
Malcolm  Canmore  ^  of  history.  In  1057  he  success- 
fully avenged  his  father's  death,  and  seated  himself 
upon  the  throne  of  Scotland ;  and  some  ten  years 
later  the  record  of  his  life  brings  before  us  an  interesting 
and  important  point  of  contact  between  the  histories 
of  Scotland  and  England. 

The  Battle  of  Hastings  (to66)  and  its  outcome,  tlie 
estabUshment  of  the  Norman  dynasty,  which  was  the 
beginning  of  a  new  era  for  England,  exercised  also 
important  influences,  direct  and  indirect,  upon  the 
fortunes  of  Scotland  and  the  Scottish  Church.  On 
the  death  of  Harold,  the  leading  English  nobles,  with 
the  concurrence  of  the  citizens  of  London  and  the 
Archbishop  of  York,  resolved  to  raise  to  the  throne 
Edgar  the  ^theling,  grandson  of  Edmund  Ironside. 
The  further  military  successes  of  William  of  Normandy 
induced  the  temporary  submission  of  Edgar  and  his 
adherents.  But  in  1068  a  league  was  formed  for  the 
restoration  of  Edgar ;  and  to  this  end  the  Earl  of 
'   Tliat  is,  "of  the  Great  Head,"  Ceann-nior. 


DECAY    OF    THE    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLANJ).  269 

Northumberland  and  Malcolm,  king  of  Scotland, 
agreed  to  afiford  military  aid.  But  William  was  again 
triumphant,  and  Edgar  ^-Etheling,  accompanied  by  his 
mother  and  his  sisters  Margaret  and  Christina,  fled  for 
safety  to  the  court  of  Malcolm.  Soon  after  their  arrival 
the  hand  of  Margaret  was  sought  by  Malcolm,  who 
was  then  (as  some  think)  a  widower,  and  after  much 
reluctance  on  her  brother's  part,  and  also  on  her  own, 
due  to  her  desire  to  devote  herself  to  a  life  of  virginity 
in  a  convent,  the  marriage  was  celebrated.^ 

Previous  to  this  date  the  Celtic  Church  in  Scotland 
had  fallen  into  degenerate  ways,  when  compared  with 
the  days  of  its  early  fame.  Intestine  wars  and  the 
ravages  of  the  Northmen  had  destroyed  all  sense  of 
security,  and  checked  the  growth  of  those  Christian 
labours  that  demand  such  sense  of  security.  The  early 
fervour  of  religion  had  waxed  cold ;  discipline  had 
relaxed  ;  the  civil  })ower  had  largely  encroached  on 
the  rights  of  the  Church ;  lay  usurpations  of  Church 
property  were  frequent  ;*the  marriage  or  concubinage 
of  the  clergy  was  not  uncommon  ;  -  and  laymen  as- 
sumed not  only  the  possessions,  but  dignities  and 
titles  properly  belonging  to  churchmen.  Thus  King 
Malcolm's  father,  Duncan,  is  represented  as  the  son 
of  the  "Abbat  of  Dunkeld,"  who  was,  in  truth,  a 
powerful  military  chief,  with  wide  possessions,  and  who 

^  Skene  {Celtic  Scotland,  vol.  i.,  p.  422)  places  the  marriage 
in  1068.  Freeman  {Norman  Conquest,  vol.  iv.,  p.  782)  argues 
for  1070. 

^  The  common  surnames,  Mactaggart  "son  of  the  priest," 
ISIacpherson  "son  of  the  parson,"  Macnab  "  son  of  the  abbat," 
MacPrior,  and  Mac  Vicar  have  been  pointed  to  in  this  connection. 


270  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

had  married  a  daughter  of  Malcolm  II.  Even  St. 
Margaret's  own  son,  Ethelred,  was  as  a  youth  lay 
"Abbat  of  Dunkeld." 

The  disregard  of  the  sanctity  of  the  Lord's  Day  was 
widespread ;  certain  near  degrees  of  affinity  were 
regarded  as  no  bar  to  marriage ;  and  there  were 
several  strange  usages  in  ecclesiastical  order  and 
ceremonial  that  naturally  surprised  and  offended  the 
Saxon  princess. 

We  are  so  fortunate  as  to  possess  a  contemporary 
account  of  Queen  Margaret's  mode  of  life  at  her 
husband's  court.^  The  title — the  Life  of  St.  Margaret 
— is  misleading,  for  it  supplies  us  with  no  consecutive 
biography  or  connected  history  of  events,  but  only  with 
some  interesting  and  graphic  pictures,  helping  us  to 
conceive  with  clearness  her  daily  round  of  duties  and 
devotions,  together  with  some  notices  of  her  last  hours. 
This  account  was  written  at  the  request  of  Matilda 
("the  good  Queen  Maude"),  daughter  of  Malcolm 
and  Margaret,  and  wife  of  Henry  L,  king  of  England, - 
by  whose  marriage  the  blood  of  the  old  Saxon  kings 
was  united  with  that  of  the  Norman  sovereigns.  The 
writer  of  the  Life  was  an  ecclesiastic  who  was  on  terms 

^  The  Life  of  St.  Margaret  is  printed  by  the  Bollandists  in  the 
Acta  Sanctorum  (June  10).  This  text  was  reprinted  by  Pinker- 
ton  (1789)  in  his  Vitcc  Antiqiuc  Sanctorum,  etc.,  of  which,  after  a 
century,  a  new  edition  appeared,  Lives  of  the  Scottish  Saints, 
edited  by  Metcalf  (1889).  The  Surtees  Society  have  printed  the 
Life  (in  vol.  51  of  their  publications)  from  a  different  text  from 
that  published  by  the  Bollandists. 

-  Thus  (^ueen  Victoria  is  a  lineal  descendant  of  St.  Margaret 
of  Scotland.  The  Stuart  line  enters  our  Queen's  genealogy 
through  the  marriage  from  another  English  princess,  Margaret 
Tudor,  sister  of  Henry  VIII.,  with  James  IV. 


CHARACTER    OF    MALCOLM.  27 1 

of  very  close  intimacy  with  Queen  Margaret,  and  had 
been,  apparently,  her  confessor,  and  who,  with  the 
almost  universal  concurrence  of  scholars,^  is  identified 
with  Turgot,  at  one  time  Prior  of  Durham,  and  who 
subsequently  was  made  Bishop  of  St.  Andrews  (Aug. 
I,  1 109— Aug.  31,  1 1 15). 

When  at  the  request  of  a  queen  the  biography  of 
her  mother  was  undertaken  by  a  mediaeval  ecclesiastic, 
it  was  scarcely  possible  but  that  the  result  should  be 
a  highly  laudatory  eloge.  But  making  the  allowances 
needful  under  the  circumstances,  one  cannot  read 
the  Life  of  Queen  Margaret  without  being  convinced 
that  it  gives  us  a  substantially  true  account  of  a  good 
and  pious  woman,  of  much  intellectual  capacity  and 
force  of  character. 

From  the  history  of  Simeon  of  Durham,^  we  learn 
something  of  the  ruthless  and  ferocious  character  of 
the  man  who  was  to  be  Margaret's  future  husband. 
Just  at  the  time  of  the  arrival  in  Scotland  of  Edgar 
with  his  mother  and  sisters,  Malcolm's  army  was 
returning  from  a  terrible  inroad  into  the  English 
possessions.  The  sacred  territory  of  St.  Cuthbert  was 
ravaged.  The  order  went  forth  that  none  were  to  be 
spared.  The  old,  both  men  and  women,  were  slaugh- 
tered, in  the  language  of  Simeon,  "  like  swine."  In- 
fants snatched  from  the  breast  were  flung  up  by  the 

^  The  Bollandist  editor,  Papebroch,  on  the  authority  of  the 
MS.  which  supplied  his  text,  assigns  the  Life  to  a  contemporary 
monk  of  Durham,  named  Theodoric.  But  Fordun  cites  the  book 
as  Turgot's,  and  it  is  assigned  to  him  in  the  British  INIuseum 
text. 

'^  Siuteonis  Dunelm,  0pp.  (Surtees  Society,  vol.  51). 


272  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

Scottish  soldiers  "  in  sport "  into  the  air,  and  caught 
upon  the  points  of  their  lances.  Churches  and  those 
who  sought  refuge  in  them  were  given  to  the  flames. 
The  young  of  both  sexes  were  dragged  in  bonds  to 
Scotland.  1  There  was  no  Scottish  household  so  poor 
that  it  might  not  possess  an  English  slave.  Allowance 
no  doubt  must  be  made  for  the  hideously  cruel 
character  of  warfare  at  the  time  ;  William  of  Nor- 
mandy had  set  a  fearful  example.  Margaret  had 
certainly  no  easy  task  before  her  in  her  efforts  to  soften 
and  mould  the  disposition  of  this  fierce  soldier. 

The  king's  devoted  affection  to  his  queen  is 
exhibited  by  Turgot  in  one  of  the  most  beautiful 
passages  in  the  story.  "  I  was  astonished,  I  confess," 
he  writes,  "  at  this  great  miracle  of  God's  mercy,  when 
I  perceived  in  the  king  at  times  such  earnestness  in 
prayer,  and,  in  the  heart  of  a  man  living  in  the  world, 
such  compunction  for  sin."  "  She  taught  him  by  her 
exhortation  and  by  her  example  to  pray  to  God  with 
heartfelt  groanings  and  tears."  "T/iere  7c>as  in  him  a 
sort  of  dread  of  offendi?ig  one  whose  life  was  so  worthy 
of  veneration^  for  he  saw  that  Christ  in  very  deed 
dwelt  within  her;  yea,  he  hastened  to  obey  in  all 
things  her  wishes  and  wise  counsels."  "With  God's 
help,  she  made  him  most  ready  to  concur  in  works  of 
justice,  mercy,  almsgiving,  and  other  virtues."  But 
more  valuable  than  these  general  statements   is  the 

1  Hill  Burton  writes  :  "  The  Scots  king  swept  Northumberland 
with  a  ferocity  and  cruelty  which,  beyond  all  the  other  bloody 
raids  of  the  period,  have  left  this  one  as  a  memorable  story  of 
calamity  in  the  English  chronicles  "  {History  of  Scotland,  vol.  i., 
P-  375)- 


Malcolm's  devotion  to  margaret.         273 

vivid  picture  presented  to  us  in  the  following  words  : 
"  Allhoiigh  he  was  ignorant  of  letters,  he  would  turn 
over  and  examine  the  books  which  she  used  either  for 
prayer  or  study  ;  and  whenever  he  heard  her  express 
especial  affection  for  a  particular  book,  he  too  would 
regard  it  with  special  affection,  kissing  it  and  often 
touching  it  with  his  hands.  Sometimes  he  sent  for  a 
goldsmith  whom  he  would  command  to  ornament  the 
volume  handsomely  with  gold  and  gems.  And  when 
the  work  was  finished  the  king  himself  would  carry 
the  book  back  to  the  queen  as  a  loving  proof  of  his 
devotion  "  (cap.  ii.,  sec.  11). 

In  this  connection  may  be  mentioned  the  only 
incident  related  by  Turgot  which  savours  of  the 
miraculous  ;  for  it  is  remarkable,  and  adds  to  our 
respect  for  the  general  trustworthiness  of  the  narrative, 
that  it  is  singularly  free  from  the  supernatural  marvels 
which  corruscate  with  such  brilliance  and  frequency 
in  hagiological  literature.  Among  St.  Margaret's 
treasures  was  a  beautifully-illuminated  Book  of 
the  Gospels,  adorned  with  gold  and  gems.  The 
figures  of  the  four  Evangelists  were  painted  and  gilt, 
and  all  the  capital  letters  throughout  the  volume  were 
brilliant  with  gold.  One  day,  through  the  carelessness 
of  the  bearer  in  crossing  a  ford,  it  fell  into  the  water. 
It  was  long  sought,  and  at  last  discovered  lying  open 
in  the  depth  of  the  stream  !  The  current  had  carried 
away  the  slips  of  silk  which  were  inserted  to  protect 
the  illuminated  capitals.  Yet,  strange  to  say,  it  was 
quite  uninjured,  except  for  some  very  slight  stains  of 
damp  on  the  last  leaves.      ''Whatever   others    may 

s 


2  74  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

think,"  says  Turgot,  "  I  believe  that  this  wonder  was 
wrought  by  our  Lord  out  of  His  love  for  this  venerated 
queen."  I  see  no  reason  whatever  for  supposing,  as 
Hill  Burton  {Hist,  of  Scot/and,  vol.  i.,  p.  382) 
imagines,  that  Turgot's  Life  of  the  queen  was  written 
with  the  object  of  obtaining  for  her  an  authoritative 
recognition  "in  the  calendar  of  saints."  It  is  sub- 
stantially a  truthful  portraiture,  singularly  free  from 
vulgar  marvels.  The  recovery  and  identification  a 
few  years  ago  of  what  seems  certainly  to  be  the  very 
volume  referred  to,  in  the  story  above  related,  is  one 
of  the  most  curious  of  the  surprises  that  meet  us  from 
time  to  time  in  bibliographical  history.  Queen  Mar- 
garet's precious  "  Book  of  the  Gospels  "  is  now  one  of 
the  treasures  of  the  Bodleian  Library.  ^ 

In  connection  with  the  credibility  of  this  story, 
which  Turgot,  it  will  be  observed,  relates  at  second- 
hand, it  may  be  well  to  recall  a  remark  previously 
made  on  the  importance  of  a  study  of  what  we  may 
call  "  comparative  hagiology."  It  was  the  correct 
thing  for  a  saint's  books  not  to  be  injured  by  water. 
Thus,  in  Adamnan's  Life  of  St.  Coluniba  (lib.  ii.,  c. 
8),  we  find  how  a  volume  written  by  the  saint  after 
being  for  twenty  days  in  the  river  Boyne  was  dry  and 
wholly  uninjured.  Again,  a  book  of  hymns  in  the 
saint's  handwriting,  after  lying  in  a  river  from 
Christmas  to  Whitsuntide,  was  similarly  protected. 
And  in  an  ancient  Irish  life  of  St.  Columba,  con- 
tained  in  the  manuscript  known  as  Leabhar  Breac, 

^  See  Appendix  III. 


275 

now  in  the  library  of  the  Royal  Irish  Academy,  we 
read — 

"Three  hundred  si)Iendid,  lasting  books 
Noble-bright  he  wrote. 

Whatever  book,  moreover,  his  hand  would  write,  how 
long  soever  it  would  be  under  water,  not  even  one 
letter  in  it  would  be  obliterated."  Again,  Simeon  of 
Durham  {Hist.  Ecd.  Dimelm,  lib.  ii.,  c.  12)  relates, 
with  reference  to  the  Lindisfarne  Gospels  (seep.  183), 
that  on  an  occasion  of  the  monk's  attempting  to  cross 
to  Ireland  in  the  ninth  century,  the  precious  volume 
fell  into  the  sea,  but  after  three  days  it  was  discovered 
on  the  coast  of  Whithorn,  with  only  a  few  stains  of 
water,  which  it  still  exhibits.  Here,  in  this  last  case, 
we  have  the  same  careful  qualification,  which  might 
seem  to  give  an  air  of  truthfulness  to  the  miracle 
of  St.  Margaret's  book.^ 

Margaret  was  a  good  mother  no  less  than  a  good 

1  To  the  remarks  here  made  the  following  interesting  passage 
may  be  added  :  "In  the  Annals  of  Clonmacnois  the  translator, 
Connell  Macgeoghegan,  has  alluded  to  the  belief  in  Ireland 
respecting  the  peculiar  property  of  St.  Columba's  MSS.  in 
resisting  the  influence  of  moisture,  in  which  he  refers  to  the  Book 
of  Durrow.  '  He,  i.  e.  Columba,  wrote  300  books  with  his  own 
hand.  They  were  all  New  Testaments  ;  he  left  a  book  to  each 
of  his  churches  in  the  kingdom,  which  books  have  a  strange 
property,  which  is,  that  if  they,  or  any  of  them,  had  sunk  to  the 
bottom  of  the  deepest  waters,  they  would  not  lose  one  letter,  or 
sign,  or  character  of  them,  which  I  have  seen  tried  partly  by 
myself  on  that  book  of  them  which  is  at  Dorowe  (Durrow)  in 
the  King's  Co.,  for  I  saw  the  ignorant  man  that  had  the  same  in 
his  custody,  when  sickness  came  on  cattle,  for  their  remedy  put 
water  on  the  book  and  suffer  it  to  rest  therein,  and  saw  also 
cattle  return  thereby  to  their  former  state,  and  the  book  receive 
no  loss.'  " — Miss  Stokes'  Early  Christian  Art  in  Ireland,  p.  20 


276  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

wife.  The  member  of  the  household  entrusted  with 
the  charge  of  her  children  was  authorized  and  enjoined 
to  use  strictness  and  even  corporal  chastisement 
whenever  it  was  necessary,  and  in  the  result  we  know 
that  the  pains  bestowed  on  "  the  godly  upbringing  " 
of  her  sons  and  daughters  were  not  in  vain.  During 
the  reigns  of  three  of  her  six  sons — Edgar,  Alexander, 
and  David — much  was  done  in  many  directions 
under  their  favouring  care  for  the  well-being  of  the 
Scottish  people  and  the  advancement  of  religion  ;  and 
in  the  purity  of  their  lives  these  monarchs  contrast 
in  a  favourable  way  with  the  prevailing  licentious- 
ness of  too  many  of  their  contemporaries  elsewhere. 
Edmund  is  the  only  one  of  her  children  who  is  said 
to  have  fallen  away  for  a  time  from  the  religious  stan- 
dard set  by  their  mother's  example ;  but  repentance 
marked  his  after  life,  and  its  sincerity  was  testified 
by  his  abandoning  a  life  of  pleasure  in  the  world  for 
the  seclusion  of  the  cloister.^  Her  two  daughters, 
Matilda  and  Mary,  were  educated  in  the  convent  of 
Romsey,  under  their  mother's  sister  Christina,  who 
was  abbess.  A  question  afterwards  arose  as  to  the 
lawfulness  of  the  projected  marriage  of  Matilda  with 
the  King  of  England.  The  archbishop,  Anselm,  and 
a  council  of  prelates  at  Lambeth  examined  into  the 
case,  and  it  was  proved  that  Matilda,  though  wear- 
ing the  religious  habit  as  a  protection  from  the 
licentious  violence  of  the  Normans,  had  never  taken 
the  vows ;  and,  to  the  joy  of  the  English  people, 
she  became  "  the  good  Queen  Maude  "  of  history. 
^  Edmund  became  a  monk  at  Montacutc,  in  Somersetshire. 


COURT  OF  QUEEN  MARGARET.         277 

The  court  of  Scotland  during  Margaret's  life  was 
marked  by  the  rare  combination  of  much  splendour 
and  much  strictness  of  manners.  The  increase  of 
material  prosperity  showed  itself  in  the  abundance  of 
rich  plate,  mostly  of  gold  and  silver,  that  now  adorned 
the  king's  table.  At  the  instance  of  the  queen,  foreign 
merchants  brought  their  wares,  hitherto  unknown,  to 
Scotland  ;  fabrics  of  divers  colours  were  now  pur- 
chased by  the  people  for  their  dress,  and  new  fashions 
in  costume  made  their  way.^  She  insisted  on  a  larger 
and  more  dignified  retinue  attending  upon  the  king 
in  all  his  public  appearances,  and  the  palace  and 
court  exhibited  a  magnificence  entirely  new  to  Scot- 
land. Margaret  herself  thought  it  her  duty  to  main- 
tain in  all  outward  forms  the  state  and  dignity  of  the 
Queen  of  Scotland ;  but  her  life  was,  nevertheless, 
one  of  extraordinary  religious  severity.  Turgot 
declares  that  in  his  experience  he  had  never  known 
any  one,  of  whatever  rank  or  position,  so  given  to 
prayer,  fasting,  and  works  of  mercy.  More  especially 
did  she  mark  the  forty  days  before  Christmas  and  the 
forty  days  of  Lent.  We  may  notice,  in  passing,  that 
as  early  as  the  seventh  century,  as  we  find  from  Bede 
{Eccles.  Hist.,  lib.  iii.,  c.  27  ;  lib.  iv.,  c.  30),  the  forty 
days'  fast  before  the  feast  of  the  Nativity  was  prac- 
tised, at  least  by  the  more  devout,  in  England.     At 

^  Margaret's  fallier,  Edward,  had  been  brought  up  in  Hun- 
gary, and  there  she  herself  had  been  l)orn,  and  there  had  spent 
lier  early  years,  before  her  father  and  his  family  were  invited 
back  to  England  (1057)  by  Edward  the  Confessor.  Iler  notions 
of  the  world  and  its  commerce  must  have  been  wider  than  those 
which  would  naturally  belong  to  a  native-born  Scottish  lady. 


278  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

these  seasons,  the  queen,  after  taking  some  rest  in  the 
beginning  of  the  night,  went  to  the  church,  and  there 
said,  first,  the  "  Matins  of  the  Holy  Trinity,"  then,  the 
"  Matins  of  the  Holy  Cross,"  and  then,  the  '*  Matins 
of  the  Blessed  Virgin."  Then  she  began  the  "  Office 
of  the  Dead " ;  and  after  that  the  Psalter,  which, 
according  to  Turgot,  she  would  sometimes  on  holy 
days  recite  completely  even  twice  or  thrice.  And 
before  the  celebration  of  the  public  mass  on  holy  days 
she  would  have  five  or  six  masses  sung  in  her  pre- 
sence. The  maintenance  of  an  intelligent  attention 
throughout  such  prolonged  services  we  may  with  con- 
fidence declare  to  be  impossible  ;  and  the  belief  in 
the  efficacy  of  a  mechanical  repetition  of  words 
could  not  fail  to  be  fostered  by  the  laudations  freely 
bestowed  upon  such  practices  as  those  of  St.  Margaret. 
But  for  us  it  is  of  interest  to  know  what  were  esteemed 
in  the  eleventh  century  as  the  marks  and  tokens  of  an 
especially  devout  mind.^ 

After  matins  and  lauds  were  finished,  St.  Margaret, 
together  with  the  king,  washed  the  feet  of  six  poor 
persons,  and  gave  them  alms.  She  then  went  to  take 
some  sleep.     When   it  was  day  she  rose  and  again 

^  It  may,  perhaps,  be  worth  observing  that  *' Hours  of  the 
Holy  Cross  "  was  certainly,  at  a  later  period,  a  favourite  form 
of  devotion.  At  matins,  the  betrayal  of  our  Lord  was  com- 
memorated ;  at  prime,  His  mocking  ;  at  tierce,  His  scourging  ; 
at  sext,  His  crucifixion  ;  at  nones,  His  death  ;  at  evensong,  His 
descent  from  the  Cross  ;  at  compline,  His  burial.  An  early 
translation,  in  north-country  English,  of  the  York  "  Hours  of 
the  Cross  "  will  be  found  in  Canon  Simmons'  Lay  Folks  Mass 
Book  (p.  82,  S(].).  See,  too,  Maskell's  Alonumenta  Ritiialia, 
vol.  iii.,  p.  10  sq. 


ROYAL    WORKS    OF    CHARITY.  279 

devoted  herself  to  prayers  and  reading  the  Psalter, 
intermingled  with  such  works  of  charity  as  the  tending 
of  little  orphan  children,  whom  she  took — says  her 
biographer — on  her  knee,  and  fed  "  with  her  own 
spoon."  Three  hundred  poor  people  were  then 
brought  into  the  great  hall,  and  having  been  seated  in 
order,  the  king  and  queen  entered,  and  in  the  presence 
of  only  the  chaplains  and  a  few  others,  served  the 
tables,  the  king  on  one  side  and  the  queen  on  the 
other,  and  "  waited  upon  Christ  in  His  poor."  The 
queen  then  returned  to  the  church.  Then,  when  it  was 
time  for  the  queen's  own  repast,  she  first  waited  upon 
twenty-four  poor  persons,  who  were  by  her  orders 
especially  attached  to  the  court,  and  accompanied 
her  in  her  various  progresses.  She  was  at  all  times 
very  sparing  in  her  own  food  ;  but  during  the  fasts  of 
Lent  and  Advent  her  severity  with  herself  was  so  great 
that  she  brought  on  a  painful  ailment,  from  which  she 
suffered  till  the  day  of  her  death. 

Inhermannersthequeenwas  bright  and  animated,  but 
her  mirth  never  descended  to  loud  laughter.  She  could 
be  severe  when  severity  was  needed,  as  the  Psalmist 
counsels  when  he  says,  "Be  ye  angry  and  sin  not."  - 

The  queen's  gifts  to  the  Church  were  many  and 
splendid.    The  church  dedicated  to  the  Holy  Trinity  ^ 

1  The  editor  of  the  Surtees  edition  of  the  Life  of  St.  Margaret 
tells  us  this  verse  is  to  be  found  in  Ephesians  iv.  26,  and  ?iot  in 
the  Psalms.  He  was  evidently  not  as  familiar  with  the  Fsalter 
as  Queen  Margaret  or  her  biographer,  or  he  would  have  found 
Jrascimini  ct  nolite pcccare  at  Psalm  iv.  5. 

-  The  interesting  Abbey  Church  at  Dunfermline,  which  in 
several  of  its  features  reminds  one  of  Durham  Cathedral,  was 
completed  by  Margaret's  son,  David  I.,  and  dedicated  in  1150. 


28o  THE   CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

at  Dunfermline,  the  principal  royal  residence,  was 
erected  by  her,  and  she  bestowed  upon  it  many  gifts, 
such  as  vessels  of  pure  and  solid  gold  for  the  service 
of  the  altar,  and  a  superb  cross  covered  with  gold, 
silver,  and  precious  stones.  Another  magnificent 
cross  was  given  to  St.  Andrews,  and  her  ladies  of  rank 
were  constantly  engaged  in  the  embroidery  of  "  copes 
for  the  cantors,  chasubles,  stoles,  altar-cloths,  and 
other  ecclesiastical  vestments  and  ornaments."  It 
may  be  noticed  that  the  embroidery  with  gold  wire 
or  thread  of  gold  attained  such  excellence  in  England 
that  it  was  known  as  Opus  Aiiglicum^  and  doubtless 
the  Saxon  princess  saw  very  quickly  the  poverty  and 
meagreness  of  the  Scottish  ecclesiastical  ornaments  as 
compared  with  those  with  which  she  had  been  familiar 
in  earlier  days.  Ladies  of  royal  blood  like  St.  Ethel- 
dreda,  the  four  daughters  of  Edward  the  Elder,  and 
Emma,  the  wife  of  King  Canute,  had  long  before 
made  themselves  famous  for  their  skill  in  such  labours 
as  these.  From  another  source,  the  Norman  chronicler 
Ordericus  Vitalis  (lib.  viii.,  c.  22),  we  learn  that 
Margaret  rebuilt  the  ruined  monastery  of  lona. 

The  queen  was,  we  are  told,  much  addicted  to  visit- 
ing the  anchorites,  who  were  to  be  found  in  many 
parts  of  Scodand.  She  entreated  their  prayers,  and, 
not  being  able  to  induce  them  to  accept  any  gift,  she 
begged  them  to  enjoin  upon  her  some  act  of  charity 
or  mercy,  which  she  punctually  fulfilled.  It  will  be 
remembered  that  Lochleven  (see  p.  202)  was  only  a 
few  miles  from  Dunfermline ;  and  the  Chartulary  of 
St.   Andrews  (p.  202)  records  a  grant  of  land  from 


ASSISTANCE    TO    PILGRIMS.  28 1 

Malcolm  and  Margaret  to  God  Almighty  and  the 
Keledei  of  Lochleven.  In  the  reign  of  Alexander, 
Margaret's  son,  we  know  there  was  an  anchorite  living 
in  the  island  of  Inchcolm  in  the  Forth,  a  short  distance 
from  the  village  of  Aberdour.  This  island  would  also 
have  been  of  easy  access  from  Dunfermline. 

St.  Andrews  was  at  that  time  much  frequented  by 
pilgrims  from  all  quarters  ;  to  be  of  service  to  those 
coming  from  the  south,  the  queen  ordered  the  erection 
of  houses  on  both  sides  of  the  Firth  of  Forth,  where 
the  travellers  could  be  sheltered  and  entertained  till 
they  could  be  ferried  over.  In  stormy  weather  these 
pilgrims  might  be  detained  on  either  shore  for  many 
days  together.  Ships  for  conveying  them  across  were 
also  provided,  and  no  charge  was  allowed  to  be 
made. 

Naturally  the  pitiable  condition  of  the  English 
slaves  in  Scotland  roused  the  compassion  of  the  good 
queen.  She  had  inquiry  made  in  all  parts  of  Scotland 
for  cases  of  special  hardship  or  ill-usage,  and  none 
could  tell  the  number  of  those  whom  she  ransomed 
and  restored  to  liberty. 

The  chapter  of  St,  Margaret's  Li/e  which  has  excited 
most  interest  among  ecclesiastical  antiquarians  is  that 
in  which  is  related  her  efforts  to  bring  the  native 
Church  into  conformity  with  the  discipline  and  usages 
of  the  Church  in  which  she  had  been  brought  up. 
We  are  told  that  at  her  instance  frequent  "  councils  " 
were  held  to  effect  her  object.  But  the  most  remark- 
able of  these  was  one  in  which  she  herself,  attended 
by  a  very  few  of  her  own  way  of  thinking  (perhaps  the 


252  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

three  English  brethren,  who,  as  we  learn  from  a  letter 
of  her  early  instructor,  Lanfranc,  he  had  at  her  request 
despatched  to  the  Scottish  Court),  debated  for  three 
days  the  points  at  issue  between  her  and  the  native 
ecclesiastics.  It  would  appear  that,  while  the  queen 
conversed  in  the  English  tongue,  the  Scottish  repre- 
sentatives carried  on  the  debate  in  Gaelic,  for  Mal- 
colm—who, we  are  told,  spoke  English  as  well  as  his 
own  tongue — is  represented  as  acting  the  part  of  inter- 
preter on  both  sides. 

The  first  point  discussed  was  what  the  queen,  with 
pardonable  ignorance,  regarded  as  a  novel  and  foreign 
usage,  viz.,  beginning  Lent,  not  on  Ash  Wednesday, 
but  on  the  Monday  following.  As  is  now  well  known, 
the  practice  to  which  Margaret  objected  was  simply  a 
survival  of  ancient  usage,  at  one  time  common  in 
Western  Christendom.  Gregory  the  Great  is  generally 
credited,  though  perhaps  on  insufficient  grounds,  with 
having  added  Ash  Wednesday  and  the  three  following 
days  to  the  Lenten  fast  in  the  Church  of  Rome,  but 
the  ordinance  was  not  everywhere  followed ;  and  even 
to  this  day  the  great  Church  of  St.  Ambrose  at  Milan, 
following  in  this,  as  in  several  other  particulars,  its 
own  rite,  observes  Lent  in  conformity  with  the  usage 
which  St.  Margaret  regarded  with  such  distress.^ 

^  See  Bingham's  Antiquities,  book  xxi.,  chap,  i.,  and  the  article 
"Lent"  in  Smith  and  Cheetham's  Diet,  of  Clir.  Antiq.  The 
remarkable  variety  as  to  the  length  of  time  observed  for  the  Lent 
fast,  particularly  in  the  East,  is  brought  out  clearly  by  the  his- 
torian Socrates  (v.  22).  Mr.  Warren  {Liiiirgy  and  Ritual  oj  the 
Celtic  C/iuir/i,  j\  7)  is  disposed  to  see  a  trace  of  the  more  ancient 
practice  in  the  Sarum  direction  to  cover  up  all  crosses,  etc.  on 
the  first  Moneiay  in  Lent. 


RECEPTION    OF    THE    EUCHARIST.  283 

The  second  point  at  issue  was  the  non-reception  of 
the  Eucharist  on  Easter  Day.  This  most  extraordinary 
practice  was  certainly  no  relic  of  ancient  Columban 
Christianity,  as  it  appears  in  Adamnan  (  Vita  ColuinbcE^ 
lib.  ii.,  c.  39)  we  have  express  reference  to  reception 
at  the  Paschal  solemnity.  The  Scottish  opponents  of 
the  queen  cited  the  warning  of  St.  Paul  against  "  eating 
and  drinking  unworthily."  The  queen  promptly  replied, 
*'  Shall  then  none  who  are  sinners  taste  of  the  sacred 
mysteries  ?  None,  not  even  the  infant  of  a  day  old, 
is  without  the  stain  of  sin.^  If  none  ought  to  receive, 
why  does  the  Lord  say  in  the  Gospel,  '  Unless  ye  shall 
eat  the  flesh  of  the  Son  of  Man,  and  drink  His  blood, 
ye  shall  have  no  life  in  you '  ?  "  She  then  explained 
the  words  of  St.  Paul  in  their  true  sense ;  and  the 
overwhelming  force  of  her  argument  was  admitted. 
Lord  Hailes  {Ann.  of  Scot,  vol.  i.,  p.  42)  is  doubtless 
quite  mistaken  in  inferring  from  this  passage  that  "the 
clergy  of  Scotland  had  ceased  to  celebrate  the  com- 
munion of  the  Lord's  Supper,"  if  he  means  that  they 
had  ceased  to  celebrate  mass.  But  it  seems  to  me 
that  the  argument  adduced  by  the  supporters  of  the 
Scottish  practice  indicates  that  reception  beyond  that 
of  the  celebrant  had  generally  ceased.  There  is  no 
hint  (as  Mr.  Joseph  Robertson  {Sfaf.  Eccl.  Scot.,  \. 
xxiii.)  would  suggest)  that  the  objection  was  based  on 

1  Tliis  argument  may  ]5erhaps  point  to  a  continuance  of  the 
universal  practice  in  the  ancient  Church  of  communicating  infants. 
Some  years  after  Queen  Margaret's  death,  we  have  a  notice  of 
tlie  usage  at  Poictiers,  and  traces  of  the  practice  lingered  in 
France  for  centuries  after  that  time.  See  Scudamore's  Noiilia 
Encharistica,  2nd  edit.,  p.  55. 


2  54  'i'HE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

a  regard  for  the  special  sanctity  of  Easter.  The 
conclusion  that  I  regard  as  most  probable  is,  that 
the  laity  never  communicated  except  at  the  hour 
of  death.  The  Book  of  Deer  (see  p.  239)  contains 
the  formula  for  communicating  the  sick,  and  hence 
I  make  the  exception.  It  has  been  remarked  that 
at  the  present  day,  in  some  parts  of  the  Scottish 
Highlands,  among  the  more  rigid  Presbyterians  to 
avoid  reception  is  considered  the  mark  of  a  scrupulous 
piety. 

The  third  point  had  reference  to  the  ritual  of  the 
mass.  Turgot  tells  us  that  "  in  some  places  there 
were  some  of  the  Scots  who,  contrary  to  the  usage  of 
the  whole  Church,  had  been  accustomed  to  celebrate 
mass  with  some  barbarous  rite  or  other  {nescio  quo  ritu 
ba7'baro)y  The  queen  was  much  scandalized,  and  so 
exerted  herself  that  henceforth  there  was  not  one  in 
the  whole  nation  of  the  Scots  that  would  presume  to 
follow  the  objectionable  practices.  I  am  quite  unable 
to  accept  Skene's  view  that  the  barbarous  rite  consisted 
in  the  Scottish  vernacular  being  used  instead  of  Latin. 
There  is,  so  far  as  I  know,  not  a  particle  of  evidence 
in  support  of  this  contention  ;  and  one  can  hardly 
doubt  that  such  a  startling  deviation  from  general 
practice  would  have  been  expressly  noticed  and  com- 
mented on  by  the  queen's  biographer.  Much  more 
likely,  as  I  take  it,  is  the  supi)Osition  that  some 
varieties  of  ceremonial  (see  p.  238)  and,  perhaps,  of 
the  language  of  the  inissal,  would  have  grievously 
offended  the  queen.  Any  practice  with  which  she 
was  not  familiar  in  her  much-loved  English  Church 


SANCTITY    OF    THE    SAIIISATH.  285 

would  easily  enough  be  reckoned  as  "  barbarous  "  by 
her.i 

The  fourth  question  in  debate  was  the  general 
disregard  of  the  sanctity  of  the  Lord's  Day,  so  that 
ordinary  labour  was  carried  on  as  on  other  days.  The 
queen  contended  for  the  veneration  due  to  the  Lord's 
Day  on  account  of  the  Lord's  resurrection,  and  Pope 
Gregory  was  cited  by  her  in  support  of  her  view.  In 
this  matter  also  she  was  completely  successful,  so  that 
no  one  would  even  carry  a  burden  on  the  sacred  day 
or  require  any  other  person  to  do  so.^ 

The  last  point  pressed  by  St.  Margaret  at  this 
council  belonged  rather  to  the  region  of  morals  than 
of  mere  ecclesiastical  order.  Marriage  with  a  step- 
mother, and  of  a  woman  with  her  deceased  husband's 
brother,  had  been  customs  in  Scotland.  These  customs 
were  henceforth  in  Scotland  rigidly  suppressed.  From 
Augustine  of  Canterbury's  question  to  Pope  Gregory 
whether  men  might  marry  their  step-mothers,  we  learn 
that  this  practice  existed  in  southern  Britain  in  the 
sixth  century  (Bede,  Eccles.  Hist.^  lib.  i.,  c.  27);  and 
nearly  a  century  after  St.  Margaret's  time  this  offensive 
custom  was  still  common  among  the  Irish.  In  Ireland 
also  marriage  with  a  brother's  widow  was  frequent. 

Turgot  adds  that  the  queen  succeeded  in  expelling 

^  Such  extraordinary  regulations,  for  instance,  as  those  de- 
sci-ibed  at  p.  235,  if  they  came  to  the  knowledge  of  the  queen, 
might  not  unnaturally  have  been  reckoned  by  her  as  constituting 
a  "barbarous  rite." 

^  Skene's  notion  that  Saturday  was  observed  as  a  day  of  rest 
in  the  Columban  Church  seems  wholly  without  foundation.  See 
Celtic  Scotland,  vol.  ii.,  p.  350. 


286  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

many  other  abuses ;  but  these  he  does  not  specify. 
Apart  from  the  interest  that  attaches  to  the  picture 
presented  of  the  personal  character  of  the  good  queen, 
this  section  dealing  with  the  differences  between  the 
practices  of  Scottish  and  English  Christianity  at  the 
close  of  the  eleventh  century  is  the  most  important 
part  of  the  Life.  It  is  to  be  regretted  that  Turgot  did 
not  enter  into  particulars  more  fully. 

Margaret's  success  as  a  controversialist  may  have 
been,  we  may  suspect,  in  large  measure  due  to  the 
fact,  related  by  Turgot,  that  Malcolm  was  prepared 
both  to  say  and  do  whatever  she  might  direct  as  to  the 
questions  at  issue.  He  was  not  a  man  to  be  trifled 
with. 

In  1093,  Malcolm  and  his  eldest  son  Edward 
advanced  with  an  army  into  Northumberland.  He 
was  entrapped,  as  it  would  seem,  by  the  Earl,  Robert 
of  Mowbray,  into  an  ambush,  and  fell  by  the  sword, 
together  with  the  prince  and  heir  to  the  throne,  not 
far  from  the  town  of  Alnwick.  His  troops  were  wholly 
dispersed — some  fled,  some  were  slain  in  battle,  and 
others  were  swept  away  in  trying  to  cross  the  swollen 
river  Alne.  Two  of  the  country  people  placed  the 
king's  forsaken  body  on  a  cart,  and  conveyed  it  to 
Tynemouth,  where  it  was  buried. 

While  Malcolm  was  absent  on  this  expedition,  his 
wife  was  lying  afflicted  with  sore  sickness  in  the  Castle 
of  Edinburgh.  At  an  interview  with  Turgot,  some 
considerable  time  before,  she  had  anticipated  that  she 
was  not  destined  for  a  long.life.     Bidding  him  farewell, 


LAST    ILLNESS    OF    QUEEN    MARGARET.  287 

she  made  two  solemn  requests —first  that  he  would 
remember  her  in  his  prayers,  and,  secondly,  that  he 
would  watch  over  the  spiritual  welfare  of  her  dear  sons 
and  daughters,  above  all  begging  him  to  warn  any  of 
them  whom  he  saw  in  danger  of  being  puffed  up  by 
the  dignity  of  earthly  state,  not  to  neglect  the  happi- 
ness of  the  life  which  is  eternal.  Her  last  sickness 
was  tedious  and  painful.  For  more  than  half  a  year 
she  was  seldom  able  to  rise  from  her  bed.  She  was 
attended  by  a  priest,  who  afterwards  became  a  monk 
of  Durham,  and  who  related  the  closing  incidents  of 
her  life  to  Turgot.  She  was  naturally  full  of  anxiety 
about  the  king,  whom  she  had  entreated  not  to  go 
with  the  army ;  and  the  expression  of  her  appre- 
hensions, upon  a  day  which  afterwards  proved  to  be 
the  day  of  the  king's  death,  was  regarded  as  something 
very  remarkable.  On  the  fourth  day  after  the  king's 
death,  and  while  yet  in  ignorance  of  the  event,  feeling 
a  little  stronger,  she  rose  and  went  to  the  oratory  ^  to 
hear  mass,  and  to  partake  of  "  the  holy  viaticum  of 
the  body  and  blood  of  the  Lord."  She  returned  to  her 
bed  much  worse,  and  she  begged  the  priest  and  other 
ministers  of  the  altar  to  stand  near  and  recite  the 
psalms  for  the  commendation  of  a  departing  soul. 
She  also  asked  that  the  Black  Cross  of  Scotland  should 

^  The  oratory  here  spoken  of  may  be  the  little  chapel  of  St. 
Margaret  on  the  summit  of  the  Castle  Rock.  This  chapel  is  the 
oldest  building  in  Edinburgh.  In  estimating  the  age  of  buildings 
of  this  period,  it  is  too  often  forgotten  that  the  Norman  style 
had  made  itself  sensibly  felt  in  Britain  before  the  Norman  Con- 
quest. In  1845  this  building  was  used  as  a  powder  magazine  for 
firing  occasional  salutes  from  the  neighbouring  battery. 


288  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

be  brought  her/  and,  holding  it  before  her  eyes  with 
both  her  hands,  she  repeated  the  whole  of  the  Fiftieth 
Psalm  (/.  e.  the  Fifty-first,  according  to  the  numbering 
followed  in  our  Bible  and  Prayer-book).     At  this  point 
her  son  Edgar,  who  had  escaped  from  the  fatal  ex- 
pedition,  entered   the   room.      The   queen   at   once 
inquired  about   his  father  and   brother.     Fearing  to 
make  known  the  terrible  truth,  he  replied  that  they 
were  well.     She,  with  a  deep  sigh,  cried,  "  I  know  it, 
my  son,  I  know  it.     By  this  Holy  Cross,  by  the  tie  of 
our  blood,  I  adjure  thee  to  tell  me  the  truth."     Under 
this  pressure  Edgar  related  the  facts.     Then,  raising 
both  her  eyes  and  her  hands  to  heaven,  she  exclaimed, 
"All  praise  to  Thee,  Almighty  God,  who  hast  been 
pleased  that  I  should  suffer  this  deep  sorrow  at  my 
departing,  and  I  trust  that  by  this  suffering  it  is  Thy 
pleasure  that  I  should  be  purified  from  some  of  the 
stains  of  my  sins."     Then  she  prayed  in  words  taken 
from  the  service  of  the  mass,  "  Lord  Jesus   Christ, 

1  The  Black  Rood  was  a  gold  cross  set  with  diamonds,  con- 
taining, as  in  a  reliquary  which  opened  and  shut,  "a  portion  of 
the  true  Cross."  The  figure  of  the  Saviour,  which  ornamented 
it,  was  carved  out  of  massive  ivory.  The  queen  had  brought  it 
with  her  to  Scotland,  and  it  is  generally  said  to  have  received  its 
name  from  the  black  case  in  which  it  was  preserved.  The  queen's 
youngest  son,  David,  afterwards  built  the  abbey-church  of  Holy 
Rood,  outside  the  city  of  Edinburgh,  perhaps  in  its  honour.  The 
Black  Rood  was  carried  off  to  England  by  Edward  I, ;  but  it  was 
restored,  to  the  indignation  of  the  English,  by  Queen  Isabella  in 
1327,  on  the  demand  of  Robert  Bruce,  In  1346  David  II.  took 
the  precious  relic  with  the  army  into  England,  and  on  his  defeat 
at  tlie  battle  of  Neville's  Cross,  near  Durham,  the  Black  Rood 
fell  into  the  hands  of  the  victors,  and  was  deposited  in  Durham 
Cathedral,  where  up  to  the  Reformation  it  was  exposed  for 
veneration  in  the  south  aisle. 


DEATH    OF    MALCOLM.  289 

who  according  to  the  Father's  will,  by  the  operation 
of  the  Holy  Spirit,  hast  by  Thy  death  given  life  to 
the  world,  deliver  me."  As  she  uttered  the  words 
''deliver  me,"  her  soul  departed  to  Christ.  Her 
body  was  removed  to  Dunfermline,  and  deposited  in 
the  church  which  she  had  built,  and,  as  she  directed, 
opposite  the  altar.  The  remains  of  her  husband  were 
afterwards  removed  from  his  EngUsh  grave,  and  buried 
by  the  body  of  his  queen. ^ 

It  is  a  noteworthy  and  significant  fact  that  shortly 
before  his  death  Malcolm  Canmore  had  ceased  to 
hold,  as  part  of  the  kingdom  of  Scotland,  lona,  the 
sacred  burying-place  of  Scottish  kings,  the  birthplace, 
and  for  so  many  long  years  the  fostering  home,  of 
Celtic  Christianity.  In  the  same  year  Fothad,  the  last 
of  the  Celtic  bishops  of  St.  Andrews,  died. 

With  St.  Margaret  one  great  chapter  of  Scottish 
Church  history  closes  and  another  is  begun.  The 
peculiar  characteristics  of  Celtic  Christianity  rapidly 

^  The  general  sentiment  of  the  Scottish  people  is  commonly 
thought  to  have  been  formally  sanctioned  in  1250  or  1251  by 
Pope  Innocent  IV.,  when,  according  to  Papebroch  (followed  by 
Alban  Butler),  St.  Margaret  was  canonized.  But  the  publication 
in  1864  of  Theiner's  Vetera  MouDuenta  Hibemoruui  et  Scotoni?n 
historiam  illustrantia,  has  raised  a  serious  doubt  on  this  question, 
for  we  find  in  a  document  there  printed  (p.  499),  Innocent  VIII. 
in  1487  addressing  a  letter  to  the  Archbishop  of  St.  Andrews, 
the  Bishop  of  Glasgow,  and  others,  in  reference  to  a  petition 
of  King  James  for  the  canonization  of  Margaret,  formei-ly  Queen 
of  Scotland.  It  seems  to  me  that  no  other  Margaret  than  the 
wife  of  Malcolm  Canmore  answers  satisfactorily  the  conditions 
of  the  case.  At  all  events,  long  before  this  time  the  Saxon 
Margaret,  if  not  formally  canonized  at  Rome,  was  regarded 
by  the  Scottish  people  as  a  saint,  and  her  cultus  was  well 
established. 


290  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

disappear  and  the  mediaeval  Church  in  Scotland  in  its 
faith,  discipline,  ritual,  and  organization  is  entirely 
akin  to  the  mediaeval  Church  in  the  kingdom  of 
England.  "  The  old  Celtic  Church,"  in  the  words  of 
Skene  {Celtic  Scotland^  vol.  ii.,  p.  417),  ''came  to  an 
end,  leaving  no  vestiges  behind  it,  save  here  and  there 
the  roofless  walls  of  what  had  once  been  a  church, 
and  the  numerous  old  burying-grounds,  to  which  the 
people  still  cling  with  tenacity,  and  where  occasionally 
an  ancient  Celtic  cross  tells  of  its  former  state.  All 
else  has  disappeared ;  and  the  only  records  we  have 
of  their  history  are  the  names  of  the  saints  by  whom 
they  were  founded,  preserved  in  old  calendars,  the 
fountains  [wells]  near  the  old  churches  bearing  their 
name,  the  village  fairs  of  immemorial  antiquity  held 
on  their  day,  and  here  and  there  a  few  lay  families 
holding  a  small  portion  of  land,  as  hereditary  cus- 
todiers of  the  pastoral  staff  or  other  relic  of  the  reputed 
founder  of  the  Church,  with  some  small  remains  of  its 
jurisdiction." 

Turgot  records  neither  the  day  nor  the  year  of  St. 
Margaret's  death.  But  we  learn  from  Simeon  of 
Durham  and  other  English  chroniclers  that  Malcolm's 
defeat  and  death  took  place  on  '*  St.  Brice's  Day  "  (/.  e. 
13  Nov.)  1093;  and  so  in  accordance  with  Turgot's 
narrative  the  death  of  St.  Margaret  is  placed  on 
November  16.  At  this  date  St.  Margaret  is  placed 
by  the  Aberdee?i  Brevia?'y  ;  and  at  this  date  "Margaret 
Queen  "  is  entered  correctly  in  the  Kalendar  of  the 
Book  of  Common  Prayer,  prepared  for  Scotland  under 
Laud's  sanction,  and  published  in  1 6^  7.    It  is  somewhat 


FEAST    OF    ST.    MARGARET.  29  T 

amusing  to  find  Pope  Innocent  XII.  in  1693  removing 
the  Feast  of  St.  Margaret  to  June  10,  at  the  instance 
of  King  James  II.  of  England,  that  being  the  birth- 
day of  his  son,  "the  old  Chevalier."  This  was  a 
rather  singular  mode  of  paying  a  compliment. 


292 


CHAPTER    XVI. 

THE    ARCH/EOLOGY    OF    THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOT- 
LAND  IN    ITS   HISTORICAL    RELATIONS. 

We  have  seen  that  the  documentary  remains  of 
Celtic  Christianity  in  Scotland  are  few,  and,  with 
the  exception  of  the  invaluable  work  of  Adamnan, 
meagre  and  unsatisfying.  The  remains  of  a  material 
kind  are  more  numerous,  though  they  are  scanty,  com- 
pared with  similar  productions  in  Ireland.^ 

Buildmgs. — The  architectural  relics  of  the  ancient 
Scottish  Christianity  consist  of  a  few  small  and  ruined 
churches,  chiefly  in  the  Western  Highlands,  and  here 
and  there  the  remains  of  bee-hive  cells  of  stone,  which 
gave  shelter  to  monks  or  to  the  solitary  anchorite, 
together  with  a  number  of  high-crosses  and  monu- 
mental stones. 

The  remains  of  Celtic  Christianity  in  Scotland  and 
Ireland  ought  properly  to  be  studied  together.     Just 

^  A  very  thorough  treatment  of  the  Christian  archaeology 
of  Scotland  will  be  found  in  Dr.  Joseph  Anderson's  masterly 
work,  entitled  Scotland  in  Early  Christian  Titncs,  in  two 
series,  to  which  I  am  deeply  indebted  throughout  this  chapter. 
Dr.  Anderson  is  chiefly  concerned,  however,  with  archaeology 
proper,  and  not  with  archccology  in  its  relation  to  history. 


REMAINS    OF    CELTIC    CHRISTIANITY, 


293 


as  Roman  remains  at  Treves,  or  at  Lincoln  and  York, 
find  their  proper  illustrations  in  Italy,  so  the  scanty 
relics  of  early  Scottish  art  and  architecture  are  to  be 
rightly  understood  by  a  reference  to  Ireland.  The 
same  types  recur  in  both  countries,  but  in  number 
and  excellence  the  Irish  work  far  surpasses  all  that 
has   survived   to  our  time   in  Scotland. 


AVe  have  already  noticed  that  the  remains  of  early 
Celtic  Christianity  at  its  Scottish  centre,  lona,  'have 
perished.  The  visitor  to  the  island  may  perhaps  be 
persuaded  that  he  sees  in  an  elevated  ridge  with  flat- 
tened top  the  remains  of  the  casJiel^  or  valhtni^  which 
protected  the  ancient  monastery,  and  a  pile  of  stones  to 
the  west  of  the  island,  to  be  found  with  difficulty,  may 


294  I'HE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

possibly  be  the  remains  of  a  cell.  It  is  impossible  to 
fix  the  date  of  the  two  high-crosses  that  alone  remain, 
though  they  are  certainly  both  very  distinctly  of  the 
Celtic  type.  Everything  else  represents  the  work  of 
the  medieval  Church. 

Not  far  from  lona  to  the  south,  between  Mull  and 
Scarba,  is  Eilean-naNaoimh,  one  of  the  Garveloch 
islands,  or  "  Isles  of  the  Sea."  Reeves  and  Skene 
concur  in  identifying  it  with  the  Hinba  of  the  Life  of 
St.  Cohunba.  Here  we  find  a  small  church,  twenty- 
one  feet  in  length,  dry-built  of  undressed  stones.  It 
has  in  the  east  end  one  small  square-headed  window, 
widely  splayed  both  inside  and  outside,  and  a  square- 
headed  doorway  in  the  west  end,  the  jambs  of  the 
door  being  inclined  so  that  the  entrance  is  narrower 
at  the  top  than  at  the  bottom.  Close  to  the  shore  is 
a  bee-hive  cell,  the  roof  of  which  has  fallen  in.  If 
the  identification  with  Hinba  is  correct,  the  humble 
church  of  this  island  held  at  the  same  time  within  its 
sacred  walls  five  men,  each  one  of  whom  made  his 
lasting  mark  upon  the  history  of  the  Gospel  in  our 
islands  ;  and  close  beneath  that  little  window  St. 
Columba  celebrated  the  Holy  Mysteries  in  the 
presence  of  St.  Brendan,  St.  Cainnech,  St.  Comgall, 
and  St.  Cormac  (see  p.   113). 

The  remains  of  similar  cells,  but  in  this  instance 
surrounded  by  a  cashcl^  or  rami)art,  may  be  seen 
on  what  was  formerly  an  island  in  Loch  Columcille 
in  Skye.  The  little  church  of  Columcille  close  by  is 
just  the  same  length  as  that  at  Eilean-na-Naoimh. 

Close   by   the   great    cliff    of    the  promontory   of 


WOODEN    CHURCHES.  295 

Deerness.  in  Orkney,  is  a  little  island  on  which  are 
the  ruins  of  a  group  of  eighteen  cells  of  uncemented 
stone,  together  with  a  little  church,  of  dimensions 
similar  to  those  described  above.  Whatever  doubts 
may  exist  as  to  the  dates  of  these  structures,  "  they 
reveal  to  us,"  as  Dr.  Anderson  remarks,  "a  typical 
form,  of  which  it  can  be  said  with  truth  that  no  earlier 
is  known  to  exist,  or  is  likely  now  to  be  discovered."  ^ 

Though,  as  was  natural  to  expect,  no  remains  of 
them  have  survived,  documentary  evidence  makes  it 
certain  that  churches  in  the  early  part  of  the  Celtic 
period  were  not  unfrequently  constructed  of  timber, 
which  churches  were  perhaps  contemporaneous  in 
some  instances  with  the  small  structures  of  stone 
already  described.  Thus  there  is  some  reason  to 
beheve  that  the  church  erected  by  St.  Columba  at 
lona  was  of  wood.  Indeed  Bede  {EccL  Hist.,  lib.  iii., 
c.  25)  speaks  of  churches  of  wood  as  characteristic  of 
the  northern  builders,  when  he  tells  us  that  the 
Scottish  Finan  (see  p.  177)  built  his  cathedral  at 
Lindisfarne  "  not  of  stone,  but  wholly  of  hewn 
timber  after  the  manner  of  the  Scots,  and  he  roofed 
it  with  a  thatch  of  reeds."  Again,  in  710,  Naiton, 
king  of  the  Picts  (see  p.  146  ),  whose  sympathies  were 
not  with  the  Columban  monks  in  their  adherence  to 
their  distinctive  Easter  computation  and  their  charac- 
teristic tonsure,  asks  Ceolfrid  to  send  him  architects 
"  who  Avould  make  in  his  nation  a  church  of  stotie 
after  the  manner  of  the  Romans  "  {EccL  Hist.,  Hb.  v., 
c.  21).    The  wooden  structure  of  lona  apparently  gave 

^  Scotland  in  Early  Christian  Tiiius.      hirst  Series,  p.  106. 


2g6  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

place  to  a  stone  building  after  the  incursions  of  the 
Northmen  had  shown  what  an  easy  prey  to  fire  the 
wooden  buildings  had  been  (see  p.  195). 

Chancelled  churches,  with  some  few  doubtful  ex- 
ceptions, belong  to  the  period  when  Norman  influence 
made  itself  felt.  One  chamber,  one  door,  one 
window  characterize  the  earliest  work  in  stone.  In 
such  primitive  erections,  or  in  wooden  structures, 
the  great  missionary  saints  celebrated  the  worship 
of  God. 

Roimd  Towgrs. — One  of  the  most  curious  and 
interesting  features  of  the  ecclesiastical  architecture 
of  Ireland  is  exhibited  in  the  Round  Towers,  of  which 
no  less  than  one  hundred  and  eighteen  specimens, 
either  perfect  or  fragmentary,  were  known  to  exist  at 
the  beginning  of  the  century.^  In  Scotland  at  least 
two  -  buildings  of  the  same  type  remain,  both,  happily, 
all  but  perfect — one  at  Brechin,  in  Forfarshire,  the  other 
at  Abernethy  in  Perthshire — both,  it  will  be  seen,  in 
the  eastern  part  of  Scotland.  The  former  is  86  feet 
9  inches  high  (omitting  the  height  of  the  later  octa- 
gonal cap),  the  latter  (which  has  no  cap)  is  72  feet. 
As  in  the  prevailing  Irish  type,  they  stand  free  of 
any  other  buildings.  The  doors  are  at  some  distance 
from    the    ground,    and    must    originally   have   been 

'  See  Miss  Stokes'  Early  Christian  Art  in  Ireland,  p.  164, 
Lord  Dunraven,  Notes  on  Irish  Architecture,  places  tlie  number 
at  present  in  Ireland  as  seventy-six, 

-  Tlie  round  tower,  structurally  connected  witli  the  church,  in 
Egilsay  (a  small  island  of  the  Orkneys)  presents  more  perplexing 
problems  than  could  be  discussed  here  with  advantage.  The 
reader  is  referred  to  Dr.  Anderson's  work  already  referred  to. 


ROUND    TOWERS.  297 

entered  with  the  help  of  a  ladder.  The  purpose  of 
these  buildings  was  long  doubtful,  but  is  now  gener- 
ally agreed  upon  by  archaeologists.  Everything  points 
to  their  having  been  used  as  places  of  security  for  the 
ecclesiastics  with  their  treasure  of  sacred  bells,  croziers, 
shrines,  and  other  relics,  against  the  raids  of  pillagers. 
Their  Irish  name  cloictheach  (bell-house)  may  be  ^mply 
the  translation  of  the  name  campanile,  that  was  given 
to  the  buildings  on  the  Continent  which  suggested  this 
form,  and  which  were  really  used  as  bell-towers.  But 
whatever  difficulty  is  suggested  by  the  7ianie,  we 
possess  no  bells  of  the  Celtic  period  of  any  consider- 
able size  (see  p.  304),  or  such  as  would  make  it  an 
object  to  build  towers  of  this  kind  in  which  they  might 
be  hung;  and  the  Irish  annalists  leave  us  in  no 
doubt  that  the  Towers  were  used  as  places  of  refuge 
in  sudden  emergency.  They  were  certainly  well  fitted 
to  afford  a  valuable  protection,  if  their  occupants 
were  likely  to  be  before  long  relieved  by  a  friendly 
force.  Such  emergency  might  at  any  time  arise, 
not  only  from  the  incursions  of  the  Northmen,  but 
from  intestine  feuds  and  tribal  wars.  The  following 
passages  cited  in  Petrie's  Essay  on  the  Origin  and  Use 
of  the  Roimd  Towers  of  Ireland  make  clear,  what 
indeed  we  might  ourselves  have  concluded  from 
an  inspection  of  the  buildings,  that  while  highly 
serviceable  as  a  protection  in  sudden  raids,  they 
were  not  fitted  to  sustain  any  lengtliened  and 
organized  attack  from  a  powerful  enemy. 

''a.d.  948.     The  cloictheach  of  Slane   was  burned 
by    the    Danes,     with     its     full    of    reliques,    with 


298  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN   SCOTLAND. 

Caoinechair,  Reader  of  Slane,  and  the  crozier  of 
the  patron  saint,  and  a  bell — the  best  of  bells." 
— Annals  of  the  Four  Masters. 

"a.d.  1097.  The  doktheach  of  the  Monastery, 
i.  e.  of  Monasterboice,  with  many  books  and  treasures, 
was  burnt." — Afinals  of  the  Four  Masters. 

Architectural  reasons  induce  Dr.  Anderson  to  be- 
lieve that  the  Brechin  Tower  must  be  referred  to 
a  period  at  least  later  than  the  first  half  of  the 
tenth  century.  More  than  this  cannot  be  said  with 
certainty.  Boece  tells  us  that  the  Danes  assailed 
Brechin  and  its  church  in  the  reign  of  Malcolm  II. 
(1001-1031),  and  burned  it.  This  only  shows  that 
the  place,  easily  approached  from  the  sea  at  Montrose, 
was  such  as  might  well  warrant  the  construction  of  a 
place  of  defence  and  refuge.  Bat  the  evidence  goes 
no  farther. 

Dr.  Petrie  is  confident  that  the  age  of  the  Abernethy 
Tower  is  "  much  greater  than  that  of  Brechin,"  and 
places  it  in  the  early  part  of  the  eighth  century.  To 
this  conclusion,  however,  Dr.  Anderson  gives  reason 
for  demurring.  And  at  present  we  can  say  no  more 
with  absolute  confidence.  I'ut  if  the  two  Scottish 
Round  Towers  were  suggested  by  those  in  Ireland, 
we  are  led  to  believe  that  Dr.  Petrie  has  very  un- 
duly antedated  the  structure  at  Abernethy.  "  The 
annalists  of  Ireland  do  not  refer  to  such  buildings 
till  the  year  950 ;  and  in  the  entries  regarding  the 
attacks  of  the  Northmen  from  789  to  845  it  is 
recorded  that  the  clergy  fled  for  safety  into  the  woods, 
where  they  celebrated  the  divine  mysteries,  and  spent 


SCULPTURED    STONE    CROSSES.  299 

their  days  in  prayer  and  fasting ;  but  in  the  year  950, 
and  for  two  centuries  later,  we  read  of  the 
'cloiccthech,'  house  of  a  bell,  as  a  special  object 
of  attack  to  the  Northmen."  ^ 

I  would  only  add  that  the  entire  absence  of  such 
buildings  from  tlie  west  of  Scotland  seems  to  me 
also  to  point  to  the  late  date  of  the  Brechin  and 
Abernethy  Towers,  as  suggesting  the  time  when  the 
centre  of  the  Scottish  ecclesiastical  system  had  passed 
from  the  west  and  been  well  established  in  the  east 
of  Scotland.  It  was  to  Ireland  the  monks  of  lona 
would  naturally  carry  off  their  sacred  treasure  in  the 
case  of  a  threatened  raid  of  the  Northmen.  And  in  a 
spot  so  isolated  as  lona,  the  defence  afforded  by  a 
Round  Tower,  useful  as  it  would  have  been  for  a 
temporary  asylum,  would  be  of  little  lasting  value,  as 
the  chance  of  the  relief  of  the  occupants  from  outside 
would  be  comparatively  small. 

Sculptured  Stofie  Crosses. — We  have  notices  in 
Adamnan's  work  of  the  erection  of  crosses  in  lona, 
before  the  writer's  time,  to  mark  the  place  of  some 
notable  occurrence.  Thus  on  the  spot  where  the 
aged  St.  Columba  rested  on  his  way  from  the  barn 
to  the  monastery,  upon  the  last  day  of  his  life,  a 
cross  was  erected  and  fixed  in  a  mill-stone  {Vita  S. 
Col,  lib.  iii.,  c.  24).  Another  cross  was  raised  at  the 
spot,  "  before  the  door  of  the  kiln,"  where  Ernan,  the 
uncle  of  the  saint,  suddenly  died  (lib.  i.,  c.  35)  ;  and, 
if  I  am  correct  in  my  understanding  of  the  passage,  a 
third  at  the  spot,  twenty-four  paces,  otf,  where  the 
^  StjkeS;  Early  Christian  Art  in  Ireland,  p.  173. 


300  '   THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

saint,  who  was  approaching  to  meet  his  guest,  was 
standing  when  Ernan  fell.^  But  of  the  material  or 
character   of  these    crosses  we  know  nothing. 

In  later  days  there  were  certainly  several  crosses  in 
lona,  of  which  only  two — St.  Martin's,  and  the  cross 
commonly  called  Maclean's — now  remain  perfect. 
These,  together  with  fragments  of  others,  and  the 
names  given  to  places  in  the  local  topography  of  the 
island,  suggest  that  perhaps  there  once  existed  some 
fifteen   or  twenty  of  these  striking  monuments. 

It  is  a  curious  fact  that  it  is  in  the  east  of  Scotland, 
north  of  the  Forth,  we  find  what  appear  to  be  the 
earliest  of  the  Celtic  crosses.  These  are  not  free- 
standing crosses,  exhibiting  at  a  distance  the 
cruciform  shape,  but  are  sculptured  upon  great 
erect  oblong  slabs  of  stone.  The  noble  free-standing 
crosses,  such  as  the  dignified  and  imposing  cross 
of  St.  Martin  at  lona,  are  regarded  by  archaeologists 
as  of  a  later  date. 

One  noticeable  feature  will  be  found  in  all  the 
crosses  of  Celtic  origin.  They  are  recessed  or 
ornamented  at  the  intersections  of  the  arms  with 
the  shaft.  A  very  common,  but  not  universal, 
feature  is  the  circle  which  surrounds  the  crossing, 
and  connects  the  transverse  and  vertical  limbs.  A 
certain  sign  of  a  late  date  is  the  presence  of  foliageous 
ornament,  the  earlier  specimens  being  adorned  with 
one  or  more  of  sucli  forms  as  interlacing  ribbon-work, 
fret-work,    bosses,   twistings   of  serpentine  forms,    or 

^  The  translator  in  the  Historians  of  Scotland  {so\.  vi.,  p.  H) 
renders  "restitit"  resided,  as  I  think,  quite  incorrectly. 


SUPERIORITY    OF    IRISH    ART.  30I 

Other  zoomorphic  decoration,  and  what  is  known  as 
"the  escaping  spiral  "  and  "  trumpet"  ornament.  A 
certain  sign  of  a  still  later  date  than  the  earlier  speci- 
mens of  foliage  is  the  presence  of  the  figure  of  the 
Crucified  upon  the  Cross.  The  earlier  crosses,  and 
the  crosses  which  exhibited  the  purest  and  finest 
specimens  of  Celtic  art,  are  symbolical,  or  merely 
decorative  in  their  ornament. 

If  one  may  venture  on  a  conjecture  as  to  why  it  is 
the  east  of  Scotland  that  has  preserved  the  earliest 
type  of  Celtic  cross,  it  may  be  suggested  that  after 
the  expulsion  of  the  Columban  monks  by  King  Naiton 
from  the  kingdom  of  the  Picts,  Irish  influences  were 
less  likely  to  possess  extensive  power  in  that  part 
of  the  country.  The  connection  was  in  a  measure 
interrupted.  In  the  west  the  marked  artistic 
superiority,  which  at  a  later  period  characterized 
Irish  art,  would,  as  I  imagine,  have  more  readily 
effected  a  substitution  of  better  work  for  the  rude 
crosses  of  an  earlier  time.  Irish  art  in  its  decay, 
perhaps  for  the  same  reason,  affected  the  west  rather 
than  the  east  of  Scotland.  Along  the  east  of  Scotland 
then,  in  the  Pictish  kingdom,  we  find  the  most 
primitive  type;  in  the  west  the  type  both  in  its 
perfection  and  in  its  decline.  ^ 

The  period  to  which  the  several  groups  of  monu- 
mental crosses  are  to  be   assigned   is   still   open  to 

^  Beside  Dr.  Anderson's  work,  the  student  should  consult  Dr. 
John  Stuart's  superb  vohimes,  the  Sculptured  Stones  of  Scotland^ 
which  exhibit  with  great  beauty  the  elaboration  and  intricacies 
of  the  artistic  designs. 


302  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

much  question.  The  best  specimens  of  the  decorated 
crosses  we  are  led  to  beheve  are  not  to  be  connected 
with  the  period  of  early  Celtic  Christianity,  and  very 
competent  authorities  would  place  them  not  earlier 
at  least  than  the  beginning  of  the  tenth  century. 
More  uncertainty  attaches  to  the  dates  of  the  ruder 
examples  and  to  the  incised  crosses.  But  Stuart  gives 
weighty  reasons  for  supposing  that  some  of  the  crosses 
in  the  Pictish  district  of  Scotland  date  from  the  early 
part  of  the  eighth  century, ^  that  is,  from  the  time  of 
Adamnan  and  Cuthbert. 

Ch7'istia7i  Symbols  in  Caves. — We  have  already  called 
attention  to  instances  of  the  practice  of  the  early  Celtic 
monks  retiring  for  a  time  to  some  place  of  solitude 
for  the  purposes  of  greater  seclusion  from  the  busy 
world  of  monastic  life,  and  the  exercise  of  a  less 
interrupted  devotion.  Such  a  place  of  retirement 
was  styled,  in  the  ecclesiastical  language  of  the  day, 
a  "  Desert."  The  caves  along  the  Scottish  sea-coast 
would  obviously  afford  many  places  not  unsuited  for 
this  purpose,  and  in  many  instances  local  tradition  is 
strong  in  connecting  the  names  of  eminent  ecclesiastics 
with  caves.  Careful  examination  of  these  caves  has 
in  several  cases  discovered  sculptures  of  Christian 
origin  upon  their  rocky  walls.  To  take  the  earliest 
instances,  a  cave  about  three  miles  from  Whithorn  has 
from  time  immemorial  borne  the  name  of  ''  St.  Ninian's 
Cave."  Only  a  few  years  ago  Sir  Herbert  Maxwell 
undertook  the  investigation  of  this  cave,  and  after  a 
large  quantity  of  gravel  and  rubbish  had  been  removed, 

^   Sculptured  Stones  of  Scotland,  vol.   ii.,   preface,   p,  xvii. 


CHRISTIAN    SYMBOLS    IN    CAVES.  303 

he  was  rewarded  by  finding  several  well-defined  speci- 
mens of  sculptured  crosses,  in  their  character  of  an 
early  date. 

What  is  now  the  town  of  Dysart,  on  the  coast  of 
Fife,  is  believed  to  owe  its  name  to  the  neighbourhood 
having  once  afforded  a  "  Desert "  to  St.  Serf.  I  do  not 
know  whether  the  cave  has  been  examined  with  such 
thoroughness  as  that  displayed  by  Sir  Herbert 
Maxwell,  but  when  Dr.  Stuart  published  the  second 
volume  of  the  Sculptured  Sioiies  (1865)  no  distinctively 
Christian  markings  were  found.  The  rock,  however, 
it  should  be  remarked,  is  of  a  soft  sandstone,  from 
which  carvings  would  be  easily  removed  by  natural 
causes.  According  to  the  legend,  read  as  the  Third 
Lesson  on  St.  Serfs  Day  (July  ist)  in  the  Aberdeen 
Breviary,  it  was  in  the  cave  of  Dysart  that  the  devil 
engaged  the  saint  in  a  theological  discussion  upon 
various  knotty  questions  which  are  given  at  length  in 
Wyntoun's  Cro?iykil  (book  v.,  ch.  xii.).i  Finally  the 
devil  acknowledged  himself  beaten,  and  told  the 
saint  "  he  kend  hym  for  a  wys  man,"  and  so  departed, 
never  again  to  return. 

At  St.  Andrews  there  is  a  cave  that  bears  the  name 
of  St.  Regulus ;  but  Dr.  Stuart  observes,  "  The  crumb- 
ling surface  of  the  sandstone  shows  no  remains  of 
sculpture."  ^  A  few  miles  to  the  south,  however,  at 
Kinkell,  the  walls  of  a  cave  show  sculptured  crosses ; 
and  rounding  Fifeness  at  a  few  miles  to  the  south  the 

1  Wyntoun  was  Prior  of  the  monastery  of  St.  Serf's,  Inch, 
Lochleven,  towards  the  end  of  the  fourteenth  century. 
-  Sculptured  Stones,  vol.  ii.,  preface,  p.  Ixxxviii. 


304  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

caves  of  Caiplie  show  many  crosses,  some  of  them  exe- 
cuted with  an  eye  to  artistic  effect.  There  are  other  caves 
associated  with  the  names  of  Scottish  saints,  such  as 
St.  Kiaran's,  near  Campbelton,  St.  Medan's  on  the 
Bay  of  Luce,  and  St.  Monan's,  near  the  village  of  that 
name  in  Fife.  These  "Deserts"  of  the  early  saints 
deserve  a  more  thorough  and  systematic  investigation 
than  has  yet  been  bestowed  upon  them.^ 

Bells. — Associations  of  much  interest  gather  round 
the  ancient  bells  of  the  Celtic  Church.  From  the 
view-point  of  the  student  of  art  the  earliest  and  most 
highly  honoured  of  these  relics  are  wholly  devoid  of 
merit.  They  are  of  the  rudest  construction,  and 
entirely  wanting  in  decoration.  They  are  simply 
sheets  of  iron  hammered  into  an  oblong  quadrilateral 
shape,  and  kept  in  position  by  rivets,  a  flattened  loop 
of  the  same  metal  being  attached  to  the  crown  of  the 
bell  as  a  handle.^  Sometimes  these  iron  bells  were 
given  a  coating,  inside  and  out,  by  being  dipped  into 
molten  bronze.  Some  of  the  bells  of  a  later  date  are 
cast  in  bronze,  and  assume  some  elegance  of  form; 
and  occasionally  the  handle  is  slightly  decorated.  All 
the  bells  that  have  survived  are  small ;  and  are  in  fact 
hand-bells.  Not  a  single  specimen  of  what  could  now 
be  reckoned  a  church-bell  has  come  down  to  us,  and 
we  have  no  reason  to  suppose  that  any  such  were 
hung  in   Scottish  churches   during   the  period    with 

^  Many  town-lands  in  Ireland,  and  at  least  six  parishes,  have 
names  of  which  "  Desert  "  forms  a  part. 

2  The  ancient  bell  of  the  Irish  missionary,  St.  Gall,  in  Switzer- 
land, is  of  this  type. 


ANCIENT    BELLS.  305 

which  we  are  dealing,  i  Yet,  of  little  interest  as  are 
these  bells  considered  merely  as  works  of  art,  they 
have  in  many  instances  been  regarded  by  the  Celtic 
people  of  the  country  with  profound  reverence  and 
even  awe.  It  was  doubtless  mainly  as  personal  relics 
of  the  ancient  saints  that  they  assumed  this  importance. 
If  we  did  not  know  that  the  use  of  the  "  sacring-bell," 
with  the  elevation  of  the  consecrated  elements  of  the 
Eucharist,  did  not  come  into  use  till  the  twelfth 
century,  we  might  be  led  perhaps  to  fancy  that  at 
least  the  smaller  bells  might  have  had  in  popular 
esteem  some  special  sacredness  attached  to  them  as 
connected  with  this  rite.  But,  so  far  as  we  know, 
these  bells  could  have  no  ordinary  sacred  use,  except 

^  The  following  are  measurements  of  some  interesting  bells — 

Height  Breadth  at  the 

in  inches,  mouth  in  inches. 
Bell  of  Kilmichael   Glassary,  Argyleshire 

(Iron) si     2ixii 

Bell  of  Guthrie,  Forfarshire  (Iron)  ...       7        52^42 

Bell  of  Struan,  Pertiishire  (Iron)  ...      11        7    .x  5I 

Bell    of    Birnie,    Morayshire    (Hammered 

Iron)     ...  ...         ...         ...          ...      18       6x4 

Bell  of  Birsay,  Orkney  (Iron)  •    ...          ...      12       9X7 

Bell   from    the    Broch  of  Burrian,   North 

Ronaldshay      ...  ...  ...  ...       2^     2x1 

St.   Ringan's  {i.  e.   Ninian's)  Bell    (Iron), 

in  National  Museum,  Scotland         ...       b^     4^X4 

St.   Columkill's    Bell   (Iron),   in   National 

Museum,  Scotland      ...  ...  ...      10^     Sim- 

perfect 
St.  Fillan'sBell  (Cast  Jkonze),  in  National 

Museum,  Scotland      ...  ...  ...      12       9x6 

Bell  of  Insh,  Inverness-shire  (Cast  Bronze)     10       9    x  75 

To  which  for  purposes  of  comparison  may  be  added  similar 
measurements  of  the  famous  Bell  of  St.  Patric/cs  IVill,  composed 
of  two  pieces  of  sheet-iron,  which  is  6  inches  high,  and  5  x  3I 
inches  at  the  mouth. 

U 


3o6  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    bCOTLAND. 

that  of  calling  the  monastic  brethren  to  prayer  at  the 
regular  hours  and  in  sudden  emergencies.^ 

However  the  belief  arose,  supernatural  powers  and 
miraculous  occurrences  are  often  connected  in  the 
ancient  legends  with  these  bells.  The  Pope  of  Rome 
gave  St.  Teinan  (see  p.  46)  a  present  of  a  bell  when 
he  visited  that  city,  but  the  Scottish  saint,  thinking  it 
too  troublesome  to  take  it  with  him,  left  it  behind. 
The  bell,  however,  followed  him  in  his  journey,  day 
by  day,  all  the  way  till  he  reached  Scotland.  Such,  at 
least,  is  the  tale  read  for  edification  in  the  churches  of 
Scotland  up  to  the  time  of  the  Reformation.^ 

St.  Mungo's  bell  was  reckoned  of  such  importance 
that  it  figures  to  this  day,  with  his  salmon,  his  bird, 
and  his  tree,  in  the  arms  of  the  city  of  Glasgow,  as  it 
had  done  previously  in  the  seals  of  some  mediaeval 
bishops  of  that  diocese.  In  St.  Patrick's  legendary 
history,  his  bell — indeed  more  than  one  bell — plays 
an  important  part  (see  p.  224).  In  the  equipment  he 
provides  for  a  missionary  priest  a  bell  figures  together 
with  a  chalice  ;  and  it  was  thought  worth  recording 
the  name  of  the  attendant,  Sinell  of  Cell  Dareis, 
whose  duty  it  was  to  carry  the  saint's  hand-bell. 
When  St.  Patrick  ordained  Fiech  to  be  bishop,  he 
gave  him  a  crozier  and  a  bell,  as  badges  of  his  office.^ 
According  to  the  legend  of  St.  Kiaran,  who  is  repre- 

^  See  Adamnan's  Life  of  St.  Coluniba,  lib,  ii.,  c.  43  ;  lil).  iii., 
c.  14  ;  lib.  i.,  c.  7  ;  lib.  iii.,  c.  24, 

-  See  Aberdeen  Breviary,  P'east  of  St.  Ternan. 

^  See  Dr.  Reeves'  Si.  Patriclc  s  Bell  aiul  Shrine,  prefixed  to 
Marcus  Ward's  fine  chromo-Iithographic  plates  representing  these 
relics  (Belfast,  1850). 


LEGENDS    OF    BELLS.  307 

sented  as  the  first  bishop  of  Ossory,  St.  ratiick,  meeting 
the  saint  in  Italy,  told  him  to  go  and  build  a  monastery 
in  the  centre  of  Ireland.  Kiaran,  complaining  that 
the  direction  as  to  the  locality  was  vague,  St.  Patrick 
gave  him  a  bell,  which  would  be  mute  till  he  came  to 
the  right  spot,  but  would  then  ring  out,  and  so  it  came 
to  pass  St.  Patrick's  own  bell  was  enshrined  (between 
A.D.  1091 — 1 105)  in  a  case  ornamented  with  gold, 
silver,  and  gems  ;  and  the  practice  of  thus  honouring 
and  protecting  ancient  bells  was  common  in  Ireland. 
In  Scotland  we  still  possess  two  enshrined  bells.  One 
of  these  is  the  Bell  of  Kilmichael  Glassary  (in  Argyle- 
shire),  the  highly  ornamental  shrine  of  brass  being 
regarded  by  experts  as  in  the  style  of  the  twelfth 
century.  Dr.  Anderson  {jtit  siipr.,  p.  208)  suggests  the 
possibility  that  the  bell  thus  honoured  is  no  other 
than  the  bell  made  for  St.  Columba's  contemporary, 
St.  Moluag,  bishop  of  Lismore.  The  memory  of  this 
saint  was  much  honoured  in  the  mediaeval  Church,  his 
festival  (June  25)  appearing  in  the  Kalendar  of  the 
Aberdeen  Breviary  as  (in  technical  language)  a 
"  double  major."  Now  the  Second  Lesson  appointed 
for  that  day  relates  that  at  one  time  the  saint  wanted 
a  neighbouring  smith  to  make  for  him  a  square  iron 
bell  iyferream  cainpauam  et  quadratam)  which  he 
much  needed.  The  smith  pleaded  in  excuse  that  he 
had  no  coals,  whereupon  St.  Moluag,  "trusting  the 
very  great  goodness  of  God  Almighty,"  left  the  smithy, 
and  soon  returned  with  a  bundle  of  reeds,  which  he 
asked  the  smith  to  substitute  for  coals.  The  smith 
was  an  angry  man,  and  threw  the  bundle  and  the  iron 


308  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

together  into  the  furnace  to  convince  the  saint  of  his 
folly;  but,  to  the  astonishment  of  all,  the  iron  was 
soon  fit  for  the  hammer,  and  the  bell  was  made,  which 
was  ever  after  held  in  great  honour  in  the  Church  of 
Lismore,  even  ''to  this  day"  {i.e.  15 lo).  The  Kil- 
michael  Glassary  Bell  and  its  shrine  are  now  preserved 
in  the  National  Museum  of  Antiquities,  Edinburgh. 

The  other  enshrined  bell  that  remains  in  Scotland 
is  the  Guthrie  Bell,  preserved  at  Guthrie  Castle  in 
Forfarshire.  It  is  of  hammered  iron,  and  the  shrine 
(perhaps  fourteenth-century  work)  is  of  bronze  decor- 
ated originally  with  silver,  gilding,  and  precious  stones. 
So  far  as  I  know,  outside  the  Celtic  Church  the  shrin- 
ing of  bells  is  unknown. 

The  religious  awe  with  which  these  ancient  relics 
were  regarded  has  its  curious  exemplification  in  the 
statement  of  Giraldus  Cambrensis,  that  the  people  of 
Scotland,  Ireland,  and  Wales  considered  an  oath 
made  upon  one  of  the  ancient  bells  or  croziers  as 
much  more  binding  than  an  oath  made  upon  the 
Gospels.  In  Ireland  the  Bell  of  St.  Columkille  went 
under  the  native  name  of  "  God's  Vengeance,"  in 
reference  to  the  awful  consequences  of  perjury  that 
were  to  be  apprehended  by  those  who  had  falsely 
sworn  upon  this  sacred  object.  Among  another  Celtic 
people,  the  peasants  of  Brittany,  the  Bell  of  St.  Win- 
waloe,  who  is  believed  to  have  flourished  in  the  fifth 
century,  was  held  in  great  veneration  in  modern 
times.  ^ 

^  Ada  Sancioruiii  of  the  Bollandibtb,  March  3. 


3  TO  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

In  many  case3,  as  in  Scotland,  a  special  custodian 
was  appointed  for  the  safe  guardianship  of  a  bell  or  of 
a  crozier,  and  his  office  was  endowed  by  the  great  and 
wealthy  with  grants  of  land.  The  honourable  office 
of  warden  of  the  bell,  as  with  other  similar  offices, 
sometimes  became  hereditary.  And  it  is  in  a  measure, 
perhaps,  due  to  the  connection  between  the  tenure  of 
the  land  and  the  possession  of  the  bell  that  we  owe 
the  preservation  of  some  of  these  interesting  relics. 
The  history  of  these  hereditary  offices  belongs,  how- 
ever, to  a  period  later  than  that  with  which  we  are 
dealing. 

However  largely  superstitious  fears  entered  into  the 
feelings  associated  with  these  ancient  bells,  something 
may,  surely,  be  credited  to  the  sentiment  of  personal 
reverence  for  the  memory  of  the  great  servants  of 
God,  who  laboured  so  devotedly  for  the  Christianizing 
of  Scotland. 

It  is  a  very  interesting  fact  that  in  more  than  one 
instance  bells  of  the  quadrate  shape  and  obviously  of 
the  ancient  type  have  been  preserved  by  the  country 
people  of  Scottish  parishes  in  the  Highlands  without 
any  other  protection  than  that  afforded  by  the  prevail- 
ing sentiment  of  the  neighbourhood.  In  the  upper 
part  of  Glenlyon,  in  an  old  graveyard,  an  ancient  bell, 
of  hammered  iron,  shaped  quadrangularly,  and  fas- 
tened with  rivets,  has  stood,  it  is  believed  for  cen- 
turies, in  the  open  air.  The  Bell  of  St.  P'inan  (bronze) 
lies  on  a  flat  stone  in  the  graveyard  of  Eilean  Finan, 
in  Loch  Shiel,  in  Inverness-shire.  The  Bell  of  Insh- 
on-the-Spey  is  of  cast  bronze.     It  used  to  stand  a  few 


LEGENDS    OF    T.ELLS.  3TI 

years  ago  (I  do  not  know  whether  it  still  so  stands)  on 
the  sill  of  one  of  the  church  windows.    An  interesting 
local  tradition,  the  more  valuable,  perhaps,  because 
its  real  historical  significance  is  quite  unperceived  by 
the  people  of  the  district,  declares   that  it  was  once 
removed,  but  kept  crying  perpetually,  "  Tom  Eunan, 
Tom  Eunan"  {i.e.  "the  hill  or   mount  of  Eunan''), 
till  it  made  its  way  back  to  the  hill  of  that  name  on 
which   the   church    is    erected     Now  Eunan,   as  we 
have  seen  (p.  147),  was  one  of  the  curious  phonetic 
transformations  of  Adamnan.     It  may  well  be,  as  Dr. 
Anderson  thinks,  that  this  bell  was  in  some  very  real 
way  connected  with    the  ninth  abbat   of   lona   and 
biographer  of  St.  Columba.    Another  bell  that  formerly 
had  the  reputation  of  always  returning  to  its   own 
place  is  the  Bell  of  St.  Fillan,  from  Strathfillan,  a  fine 
bronze  bell,  now  deposited  in  the  National  Museum 
of  Antiquities,  Edinburgh.     As  late  as  the  end  of  the 
last  century,  when  the  bell  was  most  culpably  removed 
by  an  English  tourist  and  conveyed  to  his  home  in 
England,  St.   Fillan's    bell  was    believed   to   possess 
supernatural   powers,  more    particularly    in    cases    of 
lunacy.^ 

The  Pastoral  Staff.— Among  other  personal  relics 
of  the  Celtic  saints,  the  staff,  or  crozier,  was  held 
in  great  veneration.  Like  the  bell,  it  possessed  not 
only  personal  associations,  but  also  the  associations 
which  connect  themselves  with  an  ecclesiastical  office 
of  high  dignity.  Again,  as  in  the  case  of  the  bell,  the 
rude  original  was  by  and  by  protected  by  a  handsome 

1  Anderson,  Scotland  in  Early  Christian  Times,  p.  192. 


312  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

covering  of  metal,  highly  decorated  and  gemmed. 
And,  as  with  the  bells,  in  process  of  time  an  hereditary 
keeper  of  the  relic  is  often  found,  honoured  l^y  an 
endowment  in  land  attached  to  his  office. 

Scotland  still  possesses  some  remains  of  the  croziers 
of  the  Celtic  Church.  While  to  the  art  student  the 
decorated  crook  of  St.  Fillan's  crozier,  presently  to 
be  described,  is  valued  as  a  beautiful  specimen  of 
ornamentation,  to  the  student  of  ecclesiastical 
antiquity  incomparably  the  most  interesting  of  these 
remains  is  the  "  Bachul  More  "  ("  the  great  baculus^'  or 
staff),  now  in  the  possession  of  the  Duke  of  Argyll  at 
Inverary  Castle.  This  is,  with  reason,  believed  to  be 
the  staff  of  St.  Moluag,  bishop  of  Lis  more,  whose 
death  is  placed  five  years  before  that  of  St.  Columba, 
and  the  story  of  whose  miraculous  bell  (see  p.  307) 
formed  part  of  the  lectionary  of  the  mediaeval  Church. 
The  metal  covering  has  almost  wholly  disappeared, 
and  we  see  a  plain  rude  stafT  of  wood,  but  two  feet 
ten  inches  in  length,  with  a  slightly-curved  head,  pro- 
bably the  actual  blackthorn  stick  carried  by  tlie  bishop 
thirteen  hundred  years  ago.^  If  the  staff,  as  it  now 
exists,  gives  us  the  original  size,  it  will  not  be  unique. 
One  of  the  figures  at  the  door  of  the  Round  Tower  at 
Brechin  holds  a  short  staff  with  a  crook ;  and  one  of 
the  illustrations  of  the  Gospels  of  MacDurnan  (about 
A.D.  925),  now   in   Lambeth   Library,  represents  St. 

^  The  name  Moluag  deserves  a  word  of  comment.  "The 
original  name  is  Lugaidh,  pronounced  Lua,  with  the  endearing 
suf^x  oc^  Luoc  or  Luoch,  and  tlie  lionorific  mo,  Mohia,  Moluoc, 
Moioch."    (Bishop  Forbes,  Kalendars  of  Scottish  Saints,  p.  409.) 


a5^ 


314  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

Luke  with  a  crooked  stick  about  the  same  size  as  St. 
Moluag's.i  It  may  be  added  that  the  hereditary 
keeper  of  the  crozier  of  St.  Moluag  possessed  a  small 
freehold  of  land  in  virtue  of  his  office. 

Another  example  of  an  ancient  Scottish  crozier  is 
that  of  St.  Fillan,  whose  memory  still  survives  in  the 
name  of  the  village  of  St.  Fillans,  beautifully  situated 
at  the  east  end  of  Loch  Earn,  and  well  known  to 
summer  tourists  in  Perthshire.  The  lovely  valley  of 
Strathfillan,  in  the  west  of  Perthshire,  also  owes  its 
name  to  this  saint.  Bishop  Forbes  would  place  his 
life  in  the  second  half  of  the  eighth  century.  The 
account  given  of  his  history  in  the  Lessons  of  the 
Aberdeen  Breviary  surpasses  the  histories  of  most 
Celtic  saints  in  the  extravagance  of  its  absurdities. 
The  saint  was  born  with  a  stone  in  his  mouth,  which 
phenomenon  so  annoyed  his  father  that  he  had  the 
infant  thrown  into  a  lake.  After  a  year  he  was 
recovered  by  good  Bishop  Ybar,  who  found  him 
playing  with  the  angels.  In  after  years  he  was  seen 
through  a  chink  in  his  cell,  by  a  prying  servant  of  the 
monastery,  engaged  in  writing'in  the  dark  by  the  light 
which  flowed  from  his  left  hand,  which  served  as  a 
candle.  "By  divine  permission  "  a  tame  crane  in  the 
monastery  pecked  out  the  spying  eye  of  the  servant ; 
but  St.  Fillan,  on  the  supplication  of  the  brethren, 
restored  its  power  of  sight.  A  wolf  killed  one  of  a 
yoke  of  oxen  employed  by  the  saint,  but  on  the 
prayers  of  the  saint  the  wolf  came  back,  submitted 

^  This  figure  is  given  in  Stuart's  Sculptured  Stones,  vol.  ii.,  p. 

78. 


CROZIER    OF    ST.     FILLAN.  315 

himself  to  harness,  and  supplied  the  place  of  his 
victim.  After  these  and  other  such  marvels,  it  was  no 
wonder  that  the  saint's  fame  was  great  and  wide- 
spread. It  is  a  fact  in  history  that  what  was  believed 
to  be  his  arm  enshrined  in  silver  played  an  important 
part  at  the  battle  of  Bannockburn.  The  head  of  his 
crozier,  which  had  been  carried  from  Scotland  by  a 
member  of  the  family  of  the  hereditary  keeper,  who 
emigrated  to  Canada,  was  recently  recovered,  and  is 
now  deposited  in  the  National  Museum  of  Antiquities 
in  Edinburgh.  With  its  exquisite  character  as  a  work 
of  art  we  are  not  here  concerned  ;  but  a  careful 
examination  of  the  relic  has  revealed  an  inner  metal 
crook,  which  would  seem  to  show  that  the  original 
staff  had  been  twice  enshrined  in  a  decorated  cover- 
ing."^ This  crozier-head  very  well  exhibits  an  interest- 
ing peculiarity  in  the  form  assumed  by  the  Celtic 
croziers.  The  curve  of  the  crook,  having  made  about 
the  third  of  a  circle  outward,  drops  suddenly  into  a 
short  rectilineal,  or  almost  rectilineal,  pendant.  This 
feature,  which  also  appears  in  the  illuminated  repre- 
sentations of  saints  in  the  Irish  manuscripts,  is 
regarded  by  archaeologists  as  a  characteristic  mark  of 
the  Celtic  crozier.  ^ 

The  staff  of  St.  Columba,  given  by  him  to  St. 
Mungo,  was  preserved,  enshrined  in  gold  and  precious 
stones,  at  Ripon.     And  we  possess  historical  evidence 

^  See  Anderson,  Scotlandiii  Early  Christian  Times,  pp.  219— 
224. 

-  The  name  Qiiigric/i,  applied  to  St.  Fillan's  crozier,  is  of 
uncertain  meaning,  and  a  discussion  of  the  speculations  that  have 
been  made  on  the  subject  would  be  out  of  place  here. 


3t6  the    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

that  the  croziers  of  St.  Donnan,  St.  Fergus,  and  St. 
IMunn  were  preserved  and  regarded  with  veneration 
in  different  parts  of  Scotland ;  but  they  are  now 
unfortunately  lost  or  in  concealment.  Here,  as  else- 
where, Irish  hagiology  and  Irish  art  is  much  richer 
than  the  colonial  Church  in  Scotland.  From  St. 
Patrick's  famous  crozier — "  the  staff  of  Jesus  " — ■ 
downwards,  illustrations  of  our  subject  are  abundant 
in  Ireland.^ 

Books  and  Book-Covers. — Our  solitary  relic,  the 
Book  of  Deer,2  suffices  to  show  that  the  same  spirit 
of  loving  reverence  for  the  sacred  Scriptures  that 
manifests  itself  so  abundantly  in  the  decoration 
bestowed  upon  the  Irish  manuscripts  was  not  absent 
from  Scotland.  The  artistic  ornament  of  this  book 
is  indeed  much  inferior  to  many  of  the  splendid 
specimens  in  the  sister  island,  but  there  is  enough  to 
show  us  something  of  the  care  and  patience  of  those 
who  were  perhaps  native  scribes.  The  text  is  written 
with  elegance,  and  the  decorated  capitals  and  borders 
exhibit  much  artistic  skill.  The  human  figures  indeed 
are  rude  and  even  grotesque ;  but  this  is  a  feature  in 
more  or  less  degree  exhibited  in  most  of  the  best 
Irish  manuscripts.  There  is  no  attempt  at  realistic 
representation ;   and  one  cannot  doubt,  however  we 

'  The  story  of  the  excliange  of  staffs  made  by  St.  Columba 
and  St.  Mungo  has  been  already  related  (p.  57).  So,  too,  the 
story  of  the  marvel  of  St.  Ninian's  staff.  A  miracle  connected 
with  the  staff  of  St.  Cainnech  is  related  by  Adamnan  ( Vita  S. 
Colitnilhc,  lib.  ii.,  c.  13).  This  saint  is  known  as  Canice  in 
Ireland,  and  Kenneth  in  Scotland. 

-  See  p.  248. 


POSITION    OF    THE    SCRI15K.  ^  317 

may  account  for  it,  that  the  avoidance  of  vcrisimiHtude 
is  deliberate  and  designed.^ 

We  have  seen  how  devoted  St.  Columba  was  to 
the  transcription  of  the  sacred  writings,  and  certainly 
before  the  close  of  the  seventh  century  the  scribe 
{Scrib/inidh  or  Schribhneoir)  appears  as  a  recognized 
member  of  the  Irish  monasteries.  The  high  esteem 
in  which  he  was  held  may  be  inferred  from  an  Irish 
canon  of  the  eighth  century,  which  makes  the  mulct 
for  the  blood  of  a  scribe  equal  to  that  for  the  blood 
of  an  abbat  or  bishop.  Again,  it  was  ordained  that 
stealing  from  "  a  king,  a  bishop,  or  a  scribe  "  should 
receive  the  same  penalty.  "  Sometimes  in  Scotland," 
writes  Mr.  Warren,-  "  in  the  seventh  to  tenth  cen- 
turies, a  scribe  was  elected  to  be  an  abbat  or  a 
bishop,  and  the  head  of  a  diocese  or  monastery 
thought  that  it  added  to  the  dignity  of  his  position  to 
be  able  to  append  the  title  of  '  scriba '  to  his  name.  .  . 
The  eighteenth  and  thirtieth  Abbats  of  lona,  in  797 
and  978,  and  the  Bishop  of  the  Isles  of  Alba  in 
961,  are  also  recorded  to  have  been  scribes." 

Some  of  the  manuscripts  written,  or  supposed  to 
have  been  written,  by  eminent  saints  were  naturally 
objects  deeply  venerated,  and  they  were  honoured  by 
being  enclosed  in  decorated  cases  of  bronze  or  silver, 
beautifully  ornamented  and  adorned  with  gold  and 
valuable  stones.  A  case  of  this  kind  was  known  as  a 
cumdach.     Some  fine  examples  of  these  book- shrines 

1  A  striking  example  from  an  Irish  Psalter  in  St.  John's 
College,  Oxford,  is  given  in  the  article  '^Miniature"  in  Smith 
and  Cheetham's  Diciiona)y  of  Christian  Aiitiqitides. 

-  Liturgy  and  Ritual  of  the  Celtic  Church,  p.  18. 


are  preserved  in  Ireland.  None  of  those  that  have 
come  down  to  us  can  be  assigned  to  a  date  earlier 
than  the  tenth  century.  The  books  which  they 
contained  were  doubdess  in  many  instances  much 
earlier.  Historically  one  of  the  most  interesting  is 
the  case  that  enshrines  a  Psalter  ascribed,  not  without 
some  probability,  to  the  penmanship  of  St.  Columba, 
which  was  believed  to  carry  with  it  victory  in  battle. 
Hence  this  Psalter  was  known  as  the  Cathach  or 
"  Battler."  ^  Fifty  leaves  and  the  silver  ainidach  of  this 
precious  relic  still  remain,  and  are  deposited  by  the 
chief  of  the  O'Donnells  in  the  Museum  of  the  Royal 
Irish  Academy.  The  old  order  for  its  use  in  war  was 
that  it  should  be  "sent  thrice  right-wise  around 
the  army  of  the  Cinel  Conaill  (one  of  the  northern 
branches  of  the  Hy  Neill  to  whicli  Sto  Columba 
belonged)  when  they  are  going  to  battle.  .  .  .  And  it 
is  on  the  breast  of  a  co-arb  or  a  cleric,  who  to  the  best 
of  his  power  is  free  from  mortal  sin,  that  the  Cathach 
should  be,  when  it  is  brought  round  the  army."  - 

No  specimen  of  a  Scottish  cunidach  has  been 
preserved,  so  far  as  we  know.  But  we  possess  a 
notice  '■'  of  a  silver  cumdach  made  by  Fothad,  the  first 
of  that  name,  Bishop  of  St.  Andrews  about  950,  for  a 
copy  of  the  Gospels,  which  was  to  be  seen,  as  we  learn 

^  Another  relic  of  St.  Columba  used  as  a  "Battler"  was  a 
crozier  of  his  carried  as  a  standard  into  1)attle  and  called  Cath- 
bJitiaidh,  that  is  Battle-victory.  See  Reeves,  Historians  of 
Scot  land,  vol.  vi.,  p.  xcix. 

-  See  Reeves'  Life  of  St.  Colnniba  [Historians  of  Scotland.^  vol. 
vi.  p.  xlii). 

•^  In  Bower's  continuation  of  f'ordun's  history,  Scoticlironicon. 


ORNAMENTED    UOOK  COVERS.  319 

elsewhere,  on  the  high  altar  at  St.  Andrews  in  the 
middle  of  the  fourteenth  century.  The  case  was 
inscribed  with  a  Latin  elegiac  couplet  setting  forth  that 
"  Fothad,  who  is  chief  bishop  {siwumis  episcopus  Scottis) 
for  the  Scots  constructed  this  case  {thecain)  of  an 
ancient  Gospel." 

Another  notice  of  a  Scottish  aundach  informs  us 
that  St.  Ternan's  copy  of  St.  Matthew's  Gospel  was 
preserved  at  Banchory  Ternan  "enclosed  in  a  metal 
case  covered  with  silver  and  gold."  ^ 

There  is  reason  also  for  thinking  that  the  large 
square  case-like  ornament  which  is  pictured  as 
suspended  from  the  neck  of  three  of  the  four 
Evangelists  in  the  illustrations  of  the  Book  of  Deer 
represents  a  cumdach.  It  is  not  uncommon  in 
similar  illustrations  to  find  each  of  the  Evangelists 
carrying  a  book,  doubtless  meant  for  his  own  Gospel, 
in  his  hand;  and  it  is  not  improbable  that  in  the 
Book  of  Deer  the  figures  are  represented  as  carrying 
each  his  own  Gospel  suspended  in  its  case  by  straps 
round  his  neck.  It  is  certain  -  that  leather  satchels 
for  carrying  books  were  so  suspended  on  the  breast 
by  straps,  and  in  an  Irish  Life  of  St  Colwnba  ^  that 
saint  is  recorded  to  have  made  a  hundred  such 
satchels.^     Lastly,  the  pillar-stones  of  Scotland  afford, 

^  Martyrology  of  Aberdeen. 

'\  See  Adamnan's  Life  of  St.  Columba,  lib.  ii.,  c.  8. 

^  Translated  by  Mr.  Hennessey,  and  appended  to  the  second 
volume  of  Skene's  Celtic  Scotland. 

^  Whatever  a  polciire,  by  some  taken  to  mean  a  satchel,  may 
have  been,  it  is  certainly,  in  the  passage  referred  to,  spoken  of  as 
distinct  from  satchels.  "A  hmidred  fine  artistic /t^/a/m ;  with 
a  hundred  croziers,  with  a  hundred  satchels. " 


320  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

according  to  Dr.  Stiiart,^  some  examples  of  cunidachs 
represented  in  the  sculptures. 

Not  only  did  Ireland,  the  mother-church  of  the 
Scotland  colony,  construct  book-shrines,  but  we  know 
that  in  the  daughter-church  of  Northumbria  a  similar 
practice  existed.  Eadfrid,  bishop  of  Lindisfarne  (698 — 
721),  wrote  and  illuminated  the  famous  "Lindisfarne 
Gospels,"  one  of  the  most  beautiful  manuscripts  of  its 
kind.  His  successor.  Bishop  Ethelwold,  caused  a 
case  to  be  made  for  it  by  "  Bilfrith  the  anchorite,"  a 
skilful  worker  in  metals,  who  adorned  it  with  pure 
silver,  gold,  and  gems. 

^  Sculpt icred  Stones,  vol,  ii.,  p.  25. 


321 


APPENDICES. 

I.  THE   ALTUS  OF   ST.    COLUMBA. 

Among  the  writings  attributed  to  St.  Coliimba  is  a  very 
remarkable  Latin  poem,  commonly  known  as  the  Alttis^ 
from  the  first  words  of  its  opening  lines — 

Altus  Prosator  Vetustus 
Dierum  et  Ingenitus. 

The  verses  were  first  printed  by  Colgan,  and  in  our  own 
time  by  Dr.  Todd  in  the  second  Fasciculus  of  his  Liber 
Hyjnnoritm.  A  fresh  interest  has  been  awakened  in  this 
ancient  sacred  poem  by  its  recent  publication  under  the 
editorship  of  the  Marquis  of  Bute.^ 

The  poem  consists  of  twenty-two  stanzas  (or  capitula) 
of  twelve  lines  each  (with  the  exception  of  the  first,  which 
consists  of  fourteen  lines),  the  initial  letters  of  the  stanzas 
exhibiting  an  alphabetical  arrangement,  which  would, 
doubtless,  serve  as  a  help  to  memory.  The  Latinity  is  rude, 
and  the  text,  perhaps,  corrupt ;  certainly  in  more  than 
one  place  the  sense  is  very  obscure.  But  Lord  Bute's 
estimate  is  hardly  exaggerated  when  he  writes — "The 
intrinsic  merits  of  the  composition  are  undoubtedly  very 
great,  especially  in  the  latter  capitula^  some  of  which  the 

1  The  Altus  of. St.  Columba,  edited,  with  a  prose,  paraphrase  and 
notes,  by  John,  Marquess  of  Bute,  1882, 

X 


32  2  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

editor  thinks  would  not  suffer  by  comparison  with  the 
Dies  IrcE^  The  ancient  belief  of  the  people  attached  many 
benefits,  temporal  and  spiritual,  to  those  who  recited  these 
verses.  The  devil  would  not  know  their  path  to  waylay 
them  ;  their  enemies  would  fail  to  find  them  ;  angels 
would  attend  them  as  they  sung  the  poem  ;  it  was  a 
protection  against  sudden  death  ;  peace  would  reign  in 
the  house  where  it  was  chanted,  and  plenty  and  prosperity 
would  wait  upon  the  singers.  Pope  Gregory  the  Great, 
as  legend  relates,  was  pleased  with  the  poem  which  had 
been  sent  to  him  by  St.  Columba,  and  was  granted  to 
perceive  the  angels  listening  as  it  was  recited  in  his 
presence.  The  Pope  saw  but  one  fault  in  it- — it  was  a 
mistake  to  confine  the  praises  of  the  Blessed  Trinity  to 
only  one  stanza. 

Through  the  kindness  of  the  Rev.  Anthony  Mitchell, 
whose  poetic  gifts  are  well  known  to  his  friends,  I  am 
permitted  to  print  here  his  very  able  and  spirited  render- 
ing of  the  Alius — a  task  which,  when  the  many  difficulties 
attendant  upon  it  are  considered,  seems  to  me  to  have 
been  accomplished  with  singular  skill.  We  are  given  a 
glimpse,  in  the  stanza  commencing  with  the  letter  I,  of 
the  writer's  strange  conceptions  of  the  physical  causes  of 
clouds  and  rain.  The  obscure  and  difficult  stanza  com- 
mencing with  U  baffles  interpreters.  Orion  is  probably 
to  be  understood  in  a  mystical  sense,  as  signifying  some 
evil  spiritual  power  or  anti-Christian  system.  The  other 
parts  of  the  poem,  however,  are  intelligible,  and  several 
of  the  stanzas  are  marked  by  a  high  degree  of  imaginative 
power.  The  prominence  given  to  the  conceptions  of 
good  and  evil  angels  falls  in  with  striking  features  in 
Adamnan's  story  of  St.  Columba's  life  ;  and  the  tendency 
shown  to  dwell  upon  what  is  dark  and  terrible  will  seem 
natural  to  those  who  have  justly  apprehended  the  character 
of  the  reputed  author  of  the  poem. 


THE    '  ALTUS  '    OF    ST.    COLUMP.A.  323 


THE   ALTUS   OF    ST.    COLUM13A. 

A  NCIENT  of  days,  enthroned  on  high! 

The  Father  unbegotten  He, 
Whom  space  containeth  not,  nor  time, 

Who  was  and  is  and  aye  shall  be  : 
And  one-born  Son,  and  Holy  Ghost, 

Who  co-eternal  glory  share, 
One  only  God,  of  Persons  Three, 

We  praise,  acknowledge,  and  declare. 

"Reings  celestial  first  Hd  made; 

Angels  and  archangels  of  light. 
In  Principalities  and  Thrones, 

And  mystic  rank  of  Power  and  Might  : 
That  Love  and  Majesty  Divine 

Not  aimlessly  alone  might  dwell. 
But  vessels  have,  wherein  to  pour 

Full  wealth  of  gifts  ineffable. 

(^AST  from  the  highest  heights  of  heaven. 

Far  from  the  Angels'  shining  state, 
Fadeth  from  glory  Lucifer 

Falling  in  scorn  infatuate. 
Angels  apostate  share  his  fall, 

Steeled  with  his  hate,  and  fired  with  pride, 
Banished  from  their  fellows  bright 

Who  in  the  heavenly  seats  abide. 

T) IREFUL  and  foul,  the  Dragon  great. 

Whose  deadly  rage  was  known  of  old, 
The  slippery  serpent,  Avilier 

Than  living  thing  that  earth  doth  hold  : 


324  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

From  the  bright  reahn  of  heaven  he  conld 
A  third  part  of  the  stars  entice, 

In  Hell's  abyss  to  quench  their  light, 
In  headlong  fall  from  Paradise. 

T7ARTH  next  and  heaven,  sea  and  sky, 

Found  shape  within  the  Eternal  mind, 
And  stood  created.     Next  appeared 

The  fruitful  herb,  and  tree  in  kind  : 
Sun,  moon,  and  stars  that  climb  the  heavens. 

And  birds  and  fishes,  great  and  small. 
And  beasts  and  herds  and  living  things. 

And  man  to  be  the  king  of  all. 

T7rom  every  glad  Angelic  tongue 

Soon  as  the  stars  sprang  into  light. 
Burst  forth  the  wondering  shout  that  praised 

The  heavenly  Creator's  might. 
And  as  His  handiwork  they  viewed 

Arose  from  loving  hearts  and  free, 
The  tribute  due  of  wondrous  song 

Swelling  in  sweetest  harmony. 

'(^AINST  Satan's  wiles  and  Hell's  assault 
Our  primal  parents  could  not  stand  : 
And  into  new  abysses  fell 

The  leader  and  his  horrid  band  ; 
Fierce  forms,  with  noise  of  beating  wings. 

Too  dread  for  sight  of  mortal  eye, 
Who  fettered,  far  from  human  ken, 

Within  their  prison  houses  lie. 

TJlM,  banished  from  his  first  estate, 

The  Lord  cast  out  for  evermore  ; 
And  now  his  wild  and  rebel  crew 
In  upper  air  together  soar ; 


THE    'ALTUS'    OF   ST.    C0LUM13A.  325 

Invisible,  lest  men  should  gaze 

On  wickedness  without  a  name, 
And,  breaking  every  barrier  down, 

Defile  themselves  in  open  shame. 

Tn  the  three  quarters  of  the  sea 

Three  mighty  fountains  hidden  lie. 
Whence  rise  through  whirling  waterspouts 

Rich-laden  clouds  that  clothe  the  sky: 
On  winds  from  out  his  treasure-house 

They  speed  to  swell  bud,  vine,  and  grain  ; 
While  the  sea-shallows  emptied  wait 

Until  the  tides  return  again. 

TT'iNGS'  earthly  glory  fleeteth  fast, 

And  for  a  moment  is  its  stay  : 
God  hath  all  might :  and  at  a  nod 

The  giants  fall  beneath  His  sway  ; 
Neath  waters  deep,  with  mighty  pangs, 

In  fires  and  torments  dread  they  rave. 
Choked  in  the  whirlpool's  angry  surge, 

Dashed  on  the  rocks  by  every  wave. 

T  IKE  one  that  through  a  sparing  sieve 

The  precious  grain  doth  slowly  pour, 
God  sendeth  down  upon  the  earth 

The  cloud-bound  waters  evermore  : 
And  from  the  fruitful  breasts  of  heaven. 

While  changing  seasons  wax  and  wane, 
The  welcome  streams  that  never  fail 

Pour  forth  in  rich  supplies  of  rain. 

iVTark  how  the  power  of  God  supreme 
Hath  hung  aloft  earth's  giant  ball, 
And  fixed  the  great  encircling  deep, 
His  mighty  hand  supporting  all 


326  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

Upon  the  pillars  which  He  made, 
The  solid  rocks,  and  cliffs  that  soar, 

And  on  the  sure  foundations  rest, 
That  stand  unmoved  for  evermore. 

]M"oNE  doubteth  that  within  the  earth 

Glow  the  devouring  flames  of  hell. 
Wherein  is  prisoned  darkest  night 

Where  noisome  beasts  and  serpents  dwell, 
Gehenna's  old  and  awful  moan, 

And  cries  of  men  in  anguish  dire. 
And  falling  tears,  and  gnashing  teeth. 

And  thirst,  and  hunger's  burning  fire. 

(~\F  realms  we  read  beneath  the  world 

Where  the  departed  spirits  wait. 
Who  never  cease  to  bend  the  knee, 

To  Christ,  the  only  Potentate. 
They  could  not  ope  the  written  Book, 

Whose  seven  seals  none  but  He  might  break. 
Fulfilling  thus  the  Prophet's  word. 

That  He  should  come,  and  victory  make. 

Paradise  and  its  pleasant  glades 

From  the  beginning  God  did  make ; 
Out  of  whose  fountain-head  there  flow 

Four  rivers  sweet,  earth's  thirst  to  slake. 
And  midmost  stands  the  tree  of  life, 

W^ith  leaves  that  neither  fade  nor  fall. 
With  healing  to  the  nations  fraught. 

Whose  joys  abundant  never  pall. 

(Questions  the  Singer,— "Who  hath  climbed 
^^     Sinai  the  mountain  of  the  Lord? 
The  echoing  thunders  who  hath  heard. 
And  ringing  trumpet-blast  outpoured? 


THE    '  ALTUS  '    OF    ST.    COLUMBA.  ^2f 

Who  saw  the  lightning's  dazzle  whirl, 
And  heaving  rocks  that  crashed  and  fell, 

Mid  metors'  glare  and  darts  of  flame, 
Save  Moses,  judge  of  Israel?" 

"DiSETH  the  dawn  ; — the  day  is  near, 

Day  of  the  Lord,  the  King  of  kings  ; 
A  day  of  wrath  and  vengeance  just. 

Of  darkness,  clouds,  and  thunderings  ; 
A  day  of  anguished  cries  and  tears, 

When  glow  of  woman's  love  shall  pale  ; 
When  man  shall  cease  to  strive  with  man, 

And  all  the  world's  desire  shall  fail. 

Coon  shall  all  mortals  trembling  stand 

Before  the  Judge's  awful  throne, 
And  rendering  the  great  account 

Shudder  each  hateful  sin  to  own. 
Horror  of  night !  when  none  can  work, 

Wailing  of  men,  and  flooding  tears, 
Opening  the  books  by  conscience  writ, 

Riving  of  hearts  with  guilty  fears. 

'T^HE  trump  of  the  archangel  first 

Shall  blare  afar  its  summons  dread  ; 
And  then  shall  burst  earth's  prison  bars. 

And  sepulchres  give  up  their  dead. 
The  ice  of  death  shall  melt  away, 

Whilst  dust  grows  flesh,  and  bone  meets  bone, 
And  every  spirit  finds  again, 

The  frame  that  was  before  her  own. 

T  Jnloosed  from  the  pole  of  heaven, 

Speedeth  Orion's  evil  ray, 
Far  from  the  clustered  Pleiades, 
Over  the  Ocean's  trackless  way. 


328  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLANb. 

Two  years  shall  pass  ere  he  return 
From  East  again  with  tortuous  speed, 

To  shine  instead  of  Hesperus. — 
Whoso  hath  wisdom  let  him  read. 

"Vrist  the  Most  High  from  heaven  descends 

The  Cross  His  sign  and  banner  bright. 
The  sun  in  darkness  shrouds  his  face, 

The  moon  no  more  pours  forth  her  light. 
The  stars  upon  the  earth  shall  fall 

As  figs  unripe  drop  from  the  tree, 
When  earth's  broad  space  is  bathed  in  fire. 

And  men  to  dens  and  mountains  flee. 

\/'ONDER  in  heaven  the  angel  host 

Their  ever-ringing  anthems  raise. 
And  flash  in  maze  of  holy  dance, 

The  Trinity  Divine  to  praise. 
The  four-and-twenty  elders  cast 

Their  crowns  before  the  Lamb  on  high, 
And  the  four  Beasts  all  full  of  eyes 

Their  ceaseless  triple  praises  cry. 

Veal  of  the  Lord,  consuming  fire, 

Shall  whelm  the  foes  amazed  and  dumb. 
Whose  stony  hearts  will  not  receive 

That  Christ  hath  from  the  Father  come. 
But  we  shall  soar  our  Lord  to  meet, 

And  so  with  Him  shall  ever  be, 
To  reap  the  due  rewards  amidst 

The  glories  of  Eternity. 


329 


II.   THE    LEGEND    OF    ST.    REGULUS. 

The  city  of  St.  Andrews  owes  its  name  to  the  belief  that 
at  that  place  in  early  times  were  deposited  some  of  the 
sacred  relics  of  the  apostle  St.  Andrew.  The  legend,  as 
believed  in  mediaeval  times  in  Scotland,  relates  that  in 
the  time  of  the  Emperor  Constantius,  the  son  of  Constan- 
tine  the  Great,  there  was  at  Patras,  in  Achaia,  a  holy  man 
named  Regulus,  keeper  of  the  relics  of  St.  Andrew,  who 
had  suffered  martyrdom  in  that  town.  The  emperor 
resolved  to  avenge  upon  the  people  of  Patras  the  cruci- 
fixion of  the  saint,  to  invade  the  town,  and  carry  off  with 
him  the  relics  of  the  Apostle.  An  angel  appeared  by 
night  to  Regulus,  and  instructed  him  to  take  from  the 
shrine  three  fingers  of  the  right  hand,  the  large  arm-bone, 
one  tooth,  and  a  knee-cap.  On  the  emperor  carrying  off 
the  remaining  relics  to  Constantinople,  the  angel  appears 
again  to  Regulus,  and  bids  him  with  certain  companions 
convey  what  he  possessed  to  the  western  parts  of  the 
world,  and  there  found  a  church  to  the  perpetual  honour 
and  glory  of  St.  Andrew.  For  two  years  he  voyages,  blown 
about  by  storms  of  the  sea,  and  at  length  lands  in  the 
country  of  the  Scots,  and  comes  to  "  Swine's  wood " 
(Mucros),  afterwards  Kilrymont.  The  angel  indicates  the 
place  where  he  should  build  a  church.  Regulus  sends  his 
companions  to  preach  the  word  of  God  to  the  "  Picts, 
Scots,  and  Britons."  Innumerable  multitudes  are  con- 
verted, and  the  faith  is  received  by  Hungus,  king  of  the 
Picts,  with  his  army.  Such  is  the  story  as  told  in  the 
Aberdeen  Breviary.  This  legend,  together  with  two 
somewhat  earlier  forms,  has  been  examined  with  much 
care  by  Skene,^  who  also  takes  into  view  notices  of  an 

^  Proceedings  of  Society  of  Antiquaries,  Scotland,  vol.  iv.,  pp. 
301 — 307,  and  Celtic  Scotland,  vol.  ii. ,  pp.  261 — 268. 


:^SO  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

Irish  Regulus  or  Riaghail  of  Muicinis  {insula  porcorum), 
an  island  in  Loch  Derg,  whose  name  appears  in  the  Irish 
Martyrologies  at  the  i6th  of  October.  Several  of  the 
Scottish  Kalendars  record  the  Scottish  Regulus  on  the 
same  day,  and  so  suggest  that  Regulus  of  Muicinis  and 
Regulus  of  Mucros  {p7-omontormm  porcorum)  are  the 
same  person.  Hence  Skene  concludes,  "  that  the  historic 
Regulus  belongs  to  a  Columban  Church  founded  among 
those  which  Columba  established  among  the  southern 
Picts  during  the  last  years  of  his  life,  and  at  the  same  time 
when  Cainnech  of  Achaboe  had  his  hermitage  there  "  (/.  e. 
in  the  north-eastern  corner  of  Fife). 

There  can  be  no  question  that  the  special  cultus  of 
St.  Andrew  in  Scotland  is  of  very  early  date.  But  the 
inquiry  as  to  how  this  came  to  be  so  is,  I  believe,  wholly 
insoluble  by  the  historical  monuments  of  antiquity  that 
are  in  our  hands  ;  and  I  am  certain  I  should  be  only 
wasting  time  in  discussing  here  the  various  conjectures  on 
the  subject.  The  notion  that  the  Picts  were  of  the  race 
of  the  inhabitants  of  Scythia,  of  which  country  St.  Andrew 
was  the  reputed  Apostle,  may  have  originated  the 
cherished  belief.  Or  there  may  possibly  be  some  founda- 
tion of  truth  for  the  supposition  that  the  Irish  St.  Riaghail 
brought  to  Fife  some  reputed  relics  of  the  Apostle.  But, 
after  all,  this  is  mere  guess-work,^ 

Every  visitor  to  St.  Andrews  is  struck  with  the  stately 
and  beautiful  tower  of  the  little  church  of  St.  Regulus.  It 
is  by  far  the  most  interesting,  as  well  as  the  most  ancient, 
of  the  many  ecclesiastical  ruins  that  mark  what  was  for 
many  centuries  a  great  centre  of  Church  life  and  influence. 
But  its  date  is  certainly  several  centuries  later  than  even 
St.  Riaghail,  who  himself  is  later  by  two  centuries  than 

1  Some  of  my  reasons  for  demurring  to  accept  Mr.  Skene's  view- 
may  be  found  in  a  paper  contributed  to  the  Proceedings  of  the 
Society  of  Scottish  Antiqtiaries,   1892-3. 


ST.    MARGARET^S    GOSPEL    BOOK.  331 


the  legendary  monk  of  Patras.  So  high  an  architectural 
authority  as  Sir  Gilbert  Scott  {Lectures  on  Medtceval 
Architecture^  vol.  ii.,  p.  24)  is  not  able  to  speak  with 
confidence  as  to  the  date  of  the  building.  But  it  may 
with  reason  be  declared  to  be  not  earlier  than  the  tenth 
century,  and  more  probably  belongs  to  the  eleventh  or 
twelfth. 


III.  ST.    MARGARET'S    GOSPEL   BOOK. 

The  following  very  interesting  account  of  the  volume 
is  taken  from  Mr.  Falconer  Madan's  Books  in  Manu- 
script^ 1893. 

"  Six  years  ago  a  little  octavo  volume  in  worn  brown 
binding  stood  on  the  shelves  of  a  small  parish  library  in 
Suffolk,  but  was  turned  out  and  offered  at  the  end  of  a 
sale  at  Sotheby's,  presumably  as  being  unreadable  to 
country  folk,  and  capable  of  being  turned  into  hard  cash 
wherewith  a  few  works  of  fiction  might  be  purchased.  The 
contempt  for  it  thus  displayed  was  apparently  shared  by 
the  cataloguer,  who  described  it  as  "  Latin  Gospels  of  the 
Fourteenth  Century,  with  English  Illuminations."  For 
the  sum  of  £(i  it  passed  into  the  Bodleian  Library,  and 
came  to  be  catalogued  as  an  ordinary  accession.  It  was 
noticed  that  the  writing  was  of  the  eleventh  century,  and 
that  the  illuminations  were  valuable  specimens  of  old 
English  work  of  the  same  century,  comprising  figures  of  the 
four  evangelists  of  the  Byzantine  type,  which  was  common  in 
the  west  of  Europe  ;  the  drapery,  however,  colouring  and 
accessories  were  purely  English.  The  book  itself  was 
seen  to  be  not  the  complete  Gospels,  but  such  portions  as 


^;^2  THE    CELTIC    CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

were  used  in  the  service  of  the  Mass  at  different  times  of 
the  year.  Further,  it  was  observed  that  a  poem  in  Latin 
hexameters  had  been  written,  apparently  before  the  end  of 
the  same  century,  on  a  fly-leaf  of  the  volume,  which  began 
by  thanking  Christ  for  'displaying  miracles  to  us  in  our 
own  days,'  and  went  on  to  describe  how  this  very  volume 
had  been  carried  in  the  folds  of  a  priest's  robe  to  a  trysting- 
place,  in  order  that  a  binding  oath  might  be  taken  on  it ; 
but  that  unfortunately  it  had  been  dropped,  without  the 
priest  observing  it,  into  a  stream,  and  given  up  for  lost. 
But  a  soldier  of  the  party  at  last  discovered  it,  plunged 
head  first  into  the  river,  and  brought  it  up.  To  every  one's 
intense  surprise,  the  beautiful  volume  was  entirely  un- 
injured, '  except  two  leaves,  which  you  see  at  each  end, 
in  which  a  slight  contraction  appears  from  the  effect  of 
the  water,  which  testify  the  work  of  Christ  in  protecting 
the  sacred  volume.  That  this  work  might  appear  to  us 
still  more  miraculous,  the  wave  w^ashed  from  the  middle 
of  the  book  a  leaf  of  silk.  May  the  King  and  pious  Queen 
be  saved  for  ever,  whose  book  was  but  now  saved  from  the 
waves  ! '  The  silk  was,  no  doubt,  pieces  placed  loosely  in 
the  book  to  preserve  the  illuminations  from  contact  with 
the  page  opposite  ;  and,  sure  enough,  a  leaf  at  each  end 
of  the  book  showed  unmistakable  crinkling  from  immer- 
sion in  water.  But  who  were  the  King  and  Queen  ?  By 
a  curious  accident  connected  with  the  name  of  Margaret, 
a  lady  to  whom  this  story  was  told  remembered  a  similar 
incident  in  Forbes-Leith's  Lift'  of  St.  Margaret  of  Scot- 
land, and  the  mystery  was  solved.  There  in  the  Life  is  a 
passage  in  prose,  beginning  :  '  She  had  a  book  of  the 
Gospels  beautifully  adorned  with  gold  and  precious  stones, 
and  ornamented  with  the  figures  of  the  four  evangelists, 
painted  and  gilt.  .  .  .  She  had  always  felt  a  particular 
attachment  for  this  book,  more  so  than  for  any  of  the 
others   which  she  usually  read.'     Then   follows  a  story 


ST.  Margaret's  gospel  book.  333 

almost  identical  with  the  one  given  above,  with  some 
variant  but  not  discrepant  details.  It,  too,  mentions  the 
pieces  of  silk  and  the  contraction  on  certain  leaves,  and 
adds  that  it  was  found  lyin^^  open  at  the  bottom  of  the 
river." 

The  MS.,  of  which  Mr.  Madan  tells  the  story  just 
related,  is  very  small,  consisting  of  only  thirty-eight  leaves. 
The  size  of  the  pages,  according  to  measurements  kindly 
supplied  to  me  by  the  Rev.  H.  A.  Wilson,  Fellow  of 
Magdalen  College,  Oxford,  is  7to^X4t6  inches.  The 
passages  from  the  four  Evangelists  which  form  the  con- 
tents of  the  book  correspond  to  certain  liturgical  gospels, 
but  are  arranged  so  as  to  follow  one  another  according  to 
their  places  in  the  four  Gospels  of  the  New  Testament 
canon.  There  is  no  indication  of  the  days  upon  which 
the  passages  were  used  in  the  service  of  the  Church.  Each 
series  of  extracts  is  preceded  by  a  full-page  miniature 
representing  one  of  the  Evangelists.  Notices  of  this 
most  interesting  MS.  by  Mr.  F.  Madan,  Prof.  Westwood, 
and.  Mr.  F.  E.  Warren  may  be  found  in  the  Academy 
(Aug.  6,  Aug.  20,  Sept.  3,  1887). 

A  fac-simile  reproduction  of  the  recently  found  manu- 
script is  now  (1893)  in  preparation  under  the  editorship  of 
Mr.  Forbes- Leith. 


IV.  THE    KIRKMADRINE    EPIGRAPH. 

The  following  interesting  note  on  the  inscription  on  the 
monumental  stone  at  Kirkmadrine  was  contributed  to  the 
writer  by  the  Rev.  Edmund  McClure — 

"Your  Lordship's  conjecture  as  to  Ides  being  part  of 
a  proper  name,  and  not,  as   is  generally  assumed,   the 


334  THE   CELTIC   CHURCH    IN    SCOTLAND. 

remnant  of  idest^  is  doubtless  right.  An  eminent  Cam- 
bridge Epigraphist  puts  iciest  out  of  the  question.  I 
would  venture  to  suggest  that  the  name  here  intended  was 
Idesus.  Id  is  a  frequent  element  in  early  Cymric  names, 
e.g.  Id-nert,  Id-loes,  &c.  {Candn'O-Britisli  Saints).^  Id-cant, 
Id-guallon  {Lib.  Lafidav.  new  edition),  and  Esk-s  is  the 
name  of  a  Celtic  Deity,  and  is  probably  cognate  with 
Gothic  Ansi,  Anglo-Saxon  os^  Old  Norse  ass  (cf.  Oswald, 
Osbjorn).  It  appears  in  the  Gaulish  names  EsH-7tertus, 
Esu-ge7tus.  Viventius.,  though  Latin  in  form,  does  not 
occur,  as  far  as  I  can  find,  among  Latin  personal  names. 
It  may  represent  an  early  British  Vevendi,  In  the 
'  Cartulaire  de  Redon,'  p.  339,  appears  a  certain  Giie- 
guentus^  and,  at  p.  281,  a  Guegiiant.  Kick's  Ver- 
gleichendes  Worferbnch.,  fourth  edition,  gives  a  stem  Veios^ 
as  represented  in  Irish  Fe  —  anger  :  this  would  give  the 
Giie  in  Gueguentus,  while  the  stem  Vifido-s,  white,  would 
furnish  the  latter  part ;  cf.  Barrivendi^  an  inscription  in 
Carmarthenshire.  Mavoriiis.,  if,  as  your  Lordship  sug- 
gests, it  may  also  be  read  Maiorius.,  is  simple  enough.  If 
Mavorius  is  the  right  reading,  it  can  hardly  be  one  of  the 
many  personal  names  derived  from  Mars^  e.  g.  Marius^ 
MamercHs.,  Marfiaiis,  Sec,  and  may  be  a  Latinized  form 
of  some  such  name  as  Magiior.  The  et  coupling  the  last 
two  of  three  names  is  possible  in  late  Latin. 

"  The  meaning  of  Madrine,  with  the  accent  on  the  last 
syllable,  as  Professor  Rhys  has  pointed  out  to  me,  is  very 
obscure.  One  is  tempted  to  regard  the  Ma  as  represent- 
ing the  endearing  prefix  Mo,  and  some  such  name  as 
Draighen  {Martyr,  of  Do?teg.).^^ 

Another  stone  at  Kirkmadrine  with  a  similar  -P  has  still 
legible  SET 

FLOREN 
TIVS 
commonly  read  -s  et  Florentius. 


INDEX, 


Abercorn,  184,  189 
Abernethy,  119,  202 
Adamnan,  St.,  144—147 

,,          Life  of  St.  Columha, 

80,  135—143 
, ,         book,  Concerning  the 
Holy   Places,    145, 
148— 151 
,,  transformation        of 

name,  147 
Adamnan  of  Coldingham,  186 
Adrian,  St.,  74,  198 
Aebba,  St.,  170,  185,  187 
Aebba,  another  abbess  of  that 

name,  199 
Aelred,  biographer  of  Niniah, 

23 
Aid  the  Black,  253 
Aidan,  King,  102 
Aidan,  St.,  159,  177,  261 
Ailbe,  St.,  69 

Alban,  term,  how  applied,  11 
Aldfrid,  King,  144 
Aldhame,  72 
Aldhehn,  St.,  71 
Alius  of  St.  Colmiiba,  87,  321 

-328 
Amhra  Choluitnchille^  \OAf,  in 
•an,  as  a  suffix,  86 
Angels,   prominence   given    to 

agency  of,  220 
Antonine,  rampart  of,  12 
Apurcrossan,  120,  152 
Architecture,  early  Celtic,  293 

— 296 


Arculf,  Bishop,  of  Gaul,  148 — 

151 
Ard-comarb,  129 
Artgaile,  King,  152 

Bachul  More,  the,  312 
Baithene,  116,  128,  133 
Baldred,  St.,  71 
Ballachulish,     wooden      figure 

found  at,    22 
Bamborough,  144,  160 
Banchory-Ternan,  47 
Bangor  (in  Down),  104 
Bangor,  Antiphonary  of    212, 

240 
Bards,  Irish,  103 
Bee-hive  cells,  293,  294 
Bells,  Celtic,  304 — 311 
Birr,  Synod  of,  145 
Black  Rood,  the,  288 
Blaithmac,  154 
Boece,  Hector,  45 
Boisil,  St.,  168 
Brechin,  202 

Brigid,  St.,  71,  97,  171,  259 
Britius,  St.,  71 
Brude,  King,  92,  96 
Cainnech,  St.,  97 
Calpornius,  35 

Candida  Casa,  26,  29,  30,  191 
Canice,  St.,  97 
Cathach,  St.  Columba's  Psalter, 

Caves,   Christian    symbols    in, 
302 


33^ 


INDEX. 


Cenn  Cruaich,  the  idol,  22 

Ceolfrid,  145,  146 

Chad,  St.,  160 

Ciaran,  St,,  69 

Clog  Rinny,  31,  3o5.  309 

Clonard,  87 

Coinmcd^  meaning  of  word,  103 

Coldingham,  170,  185,  186, 
188,  199 

Coleraine,  battle  of,  104 

Colman,  frequency  of  name, 
86 

Colman,  Bishop  of  Lindisfarne, 
178—180 

Columba,  St.,  80—121 

Columban  of  Luxeuil,  232 

Columban  Mocu  Loigse,  228 

Columban  monasteries  in  Scot- 
land, 119,  120 

Comarb,  128 

Comgall,  St. ,  97,  104 

Communion  in  both  kinds,  239 

Consecration,  by  one  bishop,  89 
, ,  per  salt  urn,  89 

Cooldrevny,  battle  of,  94 

Copying  of  books,  132 

Corman,  158 

Coroticus,  34 

Cronan,  Bishop,  252 

Crosses,  sculptured  Celtic,  299 

Croziers,  Celtic,  311— 316 

Culdees,  sec  Keledei 

Culross,  47 

Cufiidac/i,  a  book  shrine,  317 — 

319 
Cuthbert,  St.,  161— 176 

Dalian  Forgaill,  103,  104,  108, 

no 
Dalmeny,  147 
Dalriada,  91 

Dalriada,  British,  96,  103 
David,  St.,  of  Menevia,  56 
Dead,  prayers  for,  226 


Declan,  St.,  69 
Decurion,  office  of,  35 
Deer,  Book  of,  239,  248,  249 
Demons,  prominence  given   to 

agency  of,  220 
Desert,  181,  303 
Diarmit,  114,  117,  118,  133 
Diarmit,  King,  253 
Donnan,  St.,  120 
Dorbbene,  232 
Dornoch,  202 

Drumceatt,  Synod  of,  103,  260 
Druids,  99 

Dryhthelm,  story  of,  181 
Dunbar,  189 
Dunblane,  202 
Duncan,  King,  267 
Dunfermline,  279 
Dunkeld,  119,  155,  202 
Dunnichen,  battle  of,  189 

Eadfrid,  Bishop  of  Lindisfarne, 

Easter  controversy,  245 

Eata,  160,  168 

Egfrid,  King,  185,  188,  190 

Eigg,  120 

Eilean-na-Naoimh,     112,    119, 

294 
Enoch,  St.,  32,  53,  54 
Episcopate    in  Celtic   Church, 

250 
Ermenburga,  188 
Etchen,  Bishop,  88 
Ethelfrid,  157 
Ethelreda,  Queen,  185 
Ethelwold,   Abbat  of  Melrose, 

182 
Eucharist,  218 

,,         peculiar   rites,    235 
238 

Fasting,  131 
Finan,  Bishop,  177 


INDEX. 


337 


Kindchan,  253 

Finnian,  St.,  of  Clonaid,  87 

Finnian,  St.,  of  Movillc,  86 

Foidun,  40 

Foidun,  John  of,  40 

Fortrenn,  155 

Fothad,  Bishop,  289 

Gall,  St.,  71 
Gem  man,  87 
German,  St.,  Bishop  of  Auxerre, 

210 
Gildas,  243 
Gruoch,  268 

Hadrian,  wall  of,  12 

Heathenism,  character  of  Cel- 
tic, 21,  98 

Hexham,  see  of,  191 

Hilda,  St.,  double  monastery 
of,  171 

Ibar,  St.,  69 

Inishowen,  90 

Inismurray,  95 

Innisboffin,  monastery  on,  179 

Invocation  of  saints,  225 

lona,  physical  features  of,  122— 

125 
,,    origin  of  name,  127 
,,    ravaged  by  Danes,  153 

Jocelyn,  Bishop  of  Glasgow,  51 
Jocelyn,  monk  of  Furness,  51 
,,       his  Life  of  St.  Patrick, 

70 
,,       character  of  his    Life 
of  Kentigern,  64 — 73 

Keledei,  201—207 
Kenneth,  St.,  97 
Kenneth  Mac  Alpine,  King,  154 
Kentigern,  St.,  life  of,  49 — 58 
Kilfinichen,  254 


Kilwinning,  88 
Kingarth,  120 

Kirkniadrine,     monumental 
sculptures  at,  15 

Lanfranc,  Archbishop,  282 
Leader  Water,  161 
Lent,  beginning  of,  282 
Lex  Innocentium,  194 
Lindisfarne,  physical  features  of, 

159 
,,  ravaged  by  Danes, 

153 

,,  Gospels,  183 

Lismore,  island  of,  119,  202 
Lochleven,  St.    Serf's  Isle   in, 

202,  280 
Lochmaree,  121 
Loup,  St.,  BishopofTroyes,2iO 

Macbeth,  267 
Machar,  St.,  120 
Maelrubha,  St.,  120 
Magi,  99 
Major,  John,  73 
Malcolm  Canmore,  271 
Margaret,  St.,  267— 29 1 
Margaret,  St.,  Gospel  book  of, 

273,  331 
Maude,  Queen,  270,  276 
May,  Isle  of,  197 
Mayo,    English   monastery   of, 

179 
Melrose,  160,  180,  184,  199 
Missal,  the  Slowe,  230,  231 
Mixed  chalice,  232 
Mo,  prefix,  69,  312 
Moinen,  St.,  69 
Molaise,  St.,  95 
Moluag,  St.,  120,  312 
Monan,  St.,  199 
Monasticism,      introduced     by 

Ninian,  28 
Monifieth,  202 


33^ 


INDEX. 


Monks,  military  service  of,  105 

Monnena,  St.,  7: 

Monymusk,  202 

Miiititij'  Chohciinchillc,  128 

Mulling,  Book  of,  240 

Mungo,  St.,  49—58 

Mungo,  meaning  of  name,  54 

Muthill,  202 

Mylne,  Alexander,  203 

Naiton,  King,  146 
jNiall  Frassach,  King,  152 
Niduari  Picts,  170 
Ninian,  St.,  life  and  labours  of, 
24 — 28 

Olave,  St.,  201 

Olave  Tryggvesen,  King,  200 

Opus  A7iglicu)ii^  280 

Ordain,  use  of  word,  262 

Oronsay,  95,  119 

Oswald,  King,  140,  157,  158 

Oswy,  King,  178 

Palladius,  legend  of,  40 — 46 
Patrick,   St.,    early  history   of, 

34,  39 
,,  „  bells  of,  224,  305 

,,  ,,  writings  of,  33,  34, 

39,  211— 217 
Pelagianism  among  the  Britons, 

209 
Picts,  a  Celtic  race,  1 8 
Poiaii-e,  book-cover,  319 
Potitus,  35 

Regulus,  St.,  legend  of,  329 
Ringan^  corruption  of  Ninian, 
31 


Ripon,  161,  167 

Ritual  of  Celtic  Church,  233 

Ronan,  177 

Ronecht,  the,  46 

Rosmarky,  202 

Rosnat,  monastery  of,  32 

Round  Towers,  296 

St.  Andrews,  Keledei  at,  202 

Sanda,  147 

Scannlan  Mor,  104 

Scotia,  a  name  for  Ireland,  20 

Scribes,  honour  paid  to,  317 

Serf,  St.,  47,  74 

Skye,  Isle  of,  136 

Tara,  Synod  of,  145 

Teilo,  St.,  72 

Ternan,  St.,  46 

Teviot,  River,  172 

Thenew,  Thenog,  sceY.\\oc\\,  St. 

Tine,  River,  165 

Tiree,  119,  124 

Tonsure,  Celtic  form  of,  241 

Trumwin,  Bishop,  189 

Tuathal,  Abbat,  155 

Turgot,  Prior  of  Durham,  271 

Tynynghame,  72,  184 

Ultan,  St.,  69 

Valentia,  Roman  province  of,  13 
Vinnin,  88 

Walafrid  Strabo,  154,  232 
Whithorn,  ancient  cross  at,  iS 
Wilfrid,  185,  189 

York,  Colidei  at,  205 


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